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Jacob rode on Charizard, cutting through the air and closing in on the Gigantamax Corviknight.
The massive bird Pokémon had its eyes shut, its body swaying gently in the grip of Dark Void's nightmare. What caught Jacob off guard was that even fully asleep, the Gigantamax Corviknight had not dropped a single meter. It remained suspended in the air as if nothing had changed.
Then he remembered.
After Corviknight undergoes Gigantamax, the updraft generated by the surge of Gigantamax energy beneath its wings is strong enough to keep it aloft on its own. As long as the Gigantamax form held, it would never fall.
And the one before him was locked in a permanent Gigantamax form.
That meant it could hover in the air indefinitely.
Jacob's breathing quickened. He understood immediately what that implied.
The Gigantamax Corviknight was, in every practical sense, a flying island. Its broad, flat back alone was wide enough to serve as the foundation for a base — a Team Rocket aerial fortress that drifted silently above the clouds. No one would ever think to look up. And paired with the cruise-liner shell on Gigantamax Lapras's back, Team Rocket could claim both the sky and the sea as its territory.
The more Jacob thought about it, the more the idea took shape. A cunning Nickit never relies on a single den — and this would give them two.
His eyes lit up.
He caught himself and reined it in. The idea had real potential, but turning it into reality would require serious resources.
Money. He needed a lot of it.
Jacob reached into his bag and hurled a special Gigantamax Poké Ball at the sleeping Corviknight.
The ball shook once. Twice. Then clicked shut.
With the capture complete, the Secret Realm rift that had been hanging open in the air before them began to collapse inward, its edges folding like a closing wound.
"Time to go, Nina," Jacob said, turning back.
Nina had been there the whole time, riding quietly on Hydreigon's back, watching. She had not said a word throughout the battle, not even to call out to him — she had simply observed.
And she had watched carefully.
The Jacob who had just directed that battle was not quite the same person she was used to seeing. There was a sharpness to him, a focus she had not fully appreciated before. It was hard not to notice.
"Jacob," she said, her voice carrying a warmth she did not try to hide. "You were amazing."
Jacob felt a small swell of pride and, somewhat to his own surprise, a trace of embarrassment. He was not entirely sure what to do with either feeling.
"Come on," he said, already turning Charizard around. "The Pokémon Association might pick up on a rift this size. We should be gone before anyone comes to check."
"Mm."
The trip to Thousand Mountains Forest Park had gone better than Jacob had any right to expect. He and Nina had watched the sunset together — warm and unhurried — and then, as if the day had decided to reward him further, Gigantamax Corviknight had fallen into his hands.
Because the battle had taken place entirely in the air, it had not triggered any of the more dramatic weather events that sometimes accompanied Secret Realm phenomena. No snow, no mysterious fog. Only a strong gust of wind that swept through the area and prompted a routine weather advisory from the meteorological station. A handful of people sensed that something was off, but no one came close to identifying what had actually happened. The Secret Realm rift went unnoticed by the wider public.
Jacob and Nina slipped back into the flow of people leaving the park and made their way to the apartment without incident.
"Go get changed," Nina said once they were inside. "I'll start dinner."
She gathered the clothes Jacob had shed and loaded them into the washing machine without being asked, then tied on an apron and headed for the kitchen.
She knew Jacob would have plenty to deal with after a capture like this. There were no doubt a dozen things already running through his head. She had her own questions — quite a few of them — but this was not the moment to ask. The best thing she could do right now was stay out of his way and have a meal ready when he surfaced.
She was not trying to be useful in the grand sense. She just did not want to be the reason he fell behind.
"Mm," Jacob said, and got to work.
The first thing he needed to figure out was where to put Gigantamax Corviknight.
Every Gigantamax Pokémon was a remarkable asset in battle, but accommodating one was a logistical puzzle in its own right. A permanently Gigantamaxed Corviknight could not simply be tucked away somewhere convenient.
The second thing occupying his mind was the Secret Realm rifts themselves.
Having now encountered three of them, Jacob had started to notice a pattern. They did not seem to reappear in the same location twice, and the gaps between them were substantial — suggesting they were spread out across the globe, not clustered in any one region.
The first rift, tied to Gigantamax Lapras, had opened in the southern coastal waters. The second, the Winding Woods, had been in Myanmar. The third, Gigantamax Corviknight's, had been here in the Thousand Mountains area in the north. If those three points were plotted on a map and the spacing treated as roughly equal, Jacob estimated that at most one more rift might appear within the country's borders — and the most likely location was somewhere in the northwest.
He spread a map out and marked what he knew, cross-referencing the three data points until he had narrowed it down to a single region. It was speculation, nothing more, but it was the most educated guess he could make.
The mission had specified eighteen Secret Realm rifts in total, scattered worldwide. Subtracting the known Gigantamax Lapras rift and any undiscovered offshore ones, sixteen remained globally. Based on land area alone, one or two of those might fall within the country. One was already confirmed. If a second existed, the northwest was the most reasonable candidate.
Jacob folded the map away.
He had already decided to send someone out with a Wishing Star to scout that region — no guarantee they would find anything, but there was nothing to lose by trying.
Beyond the rift question, there was still the matter of who Gigantamax Corviknight would belong to.
Honestly, Jacob had only two people in mind: himself, or Nina.
For one thing, Gigantamax Corviknight was exactly what was needed to complete the terms of his trade with Champion Meyer. Nina had already said she wanted to come along for that negotiation, but right now her strongest Pokémon was the Crystal Metagross Jacob had given her — powerful, certainly, but not enough to hold her own in front of a seasoned Champion. She needed something more, both for credibility and for her own safety.
For another, Jacob had already given Raya a permanent Gigantamax Pokémon — Gigantamax Hatterene. If Nina eventually learned of that and found there was nothing comparable waiting for her, it would be difficult to explain. He had given Nina the Crystal Metagross shortly after giving Raya the Shiny Beldum egg for exactly that reason. Balance mattered. Getting ahead of problems before they started was simply good sense.
There was also a third consideration: Gigantamax Corviknight's value as an aerial platform was too significant to place in just anyone's hands. Whoever controlled it needed to be someone Jacob trusted completely — which, practically speaking, meant himself or Nina.
He had not made a final decision yet, but the options were already narrowing.