Pelipper dodged the first Thunder Punch.
And the second.
And plenty more after that.
But dodging forever was not a plan. After more than ten close calls, Slowking finally caught it with a lightning-wrapped fist and knocked it down onto the water.
As for fighting back?
Riku probably had not expected Pelipper to do much of that when he sent it out. The only move it had that could really hurt Slowking was Knock Off.
The problem was simple. Pelipper needed its wings to stay in the air. By the time it found a chance to swing one for Knock Off, Slowking's fist was already coming.
Sure, Slowking was weak to Dark-type moves. But Pelipper still had to land Knock Off first, and every time it came close, Slowking's Thunder Punch was waiting for it.
And Slowking did not need wings to fly.
If Pelipper wanted to trade wing strikes against Slowking's Thunder Punch, then the only question was how long its body could last.
Not long enough, as it turned out.
Pelipper finally dropped onto the water, unconscious. Riku's third Pokémon was down, and the referee raised the flag.
"The water field group-stage match is over! Winner: Reiji!"
"Congratulations to Reiji on advancing again! His next battlefield will be Pummelo Stadium, the main venue itself! Special guests will appear there as well, so don't miss it!"
"Yes! Another win!"
Cissy jumped up from her seat and ran toward Reiji. This time, she remembered the cameras and did not throw herself at him, but the happiness on her face was just as obvious.
"Come on," Reiji said. "Your match is next."
He smiled and waved toward the stands. There were a lot of people cheering for him now. Fans, more or less. Little seedlings worth keeping watered.
Before leaving, he took one last look at Riku's frustrated face, then walked out of the water field with Cissy.
Honestly, Riku had not lost unfairly.
Looking at his available types, he had only six Pokémon he could reasonably use in this match: Gyarados, Pelipper, Houndoom, Ninetales, Cloyster, and Tentacruel.
The last three would not have changed anything. Whoever he sent out, the result would have been ugly.
And the two Pokémon he could not use made the problem even worse. Swampert and Pupitar were both off the table. Reiji did not know about Pupitar, but that did not matter. A pseudo-legendary that could not be used was still useless.
After leaving the water field, Reiji went with Cissy to her own venue. Her match had not started yet, so they headed into the stands first.
A battle was already underway.
"Well, that's interesting," Reiji said.
Ash and Travis were on the field.
They had been fighting for a while already. One of Ash's Pokémon icons on the big screen had gone dark.
Pikachu.
"That's not good for Ash."
Anyone who had watched the anime knew Pikachu's position mattered.
If Pikachu closed the match, Ash usually had it.
If Pikachu opened and got knocked out early, things were looking rough.
The referee's whistle sounded, and this time, one of Travis's Pokémon went down. The second round of the group-stage match began.
Ash sent out Snorlax.
Travis sent out Gyarados.
Reiji looked at the two Pokémon and immediately knew how this one would go.
Travis was about to lose Gyarados. Snorlax had Thunder Punch, and for Gyarados, that was the worst possible news.
Ash was technically ahead by one Pokémon, but Snorlax was already exhausted. It looked one bad stretch away from falling asleep, and even a stall battle would be risky.
Then Travis threw out his final Pokémon.
Metagross.
The crowd erupted the instant they saw it. A pseudo-legendary had finally appeared, the first one to enter the field in this year's Orange League tournament.
"Metagross! Metagross! Metagross!"
Just as Reiji expected, once Metagross entered, one charge was enough to send Snorlax flying. Snorlax went down too, leaving Ash with only one Pokémon.
"Charizard! Charizard! Charizard!"
The venue exploded again when Charizard appeared.
This time, the crowd was cheering for the Pokémon itself. Charizard was famous enough to get that treatment. The Trainers on the field still did not have Reiji's kind of name recognition.
But the match was already slipping out of Ash's hands.
Charizard had the type advantage against Metagross, sure. The problem was Travis's command style.
He was not calling commands out loud.
He was using telepathy.
Against a rookie Trainer, silent commands were brutal. Against a veteran, they would not matter much. Experienced Trainers could read a move from the Pokémon's windup. Top players in his old world could predict an opponent in League of Legends from tiny movement habits. Same idea. That was what real competition sharpened into instinct.
Ash was not there yet.
The silent commands threw him off immediately. He kept guessing wrong, calling bad responses, and wasting Charizard's stamina while Travis and Metagross led him around by the nose.
In the end, Charizard took Thunder Punch to the wing and lost its ability to fly. After that, Metagross pinned it down with Rock-type projectiles, exploiting Charizard's x4 weakness until there was nowhere left to turn.
Charizard fell.
"Metagross! Metagross! Metagross!"
The whole arena came alive again. It had been a good fight, and the crowd loved a winner.
"Hahaha! I won!"
Travis could not stop laughing.
Ash looked too much like him, and losing to him last time had left Travis with a knot in his chest. He had sworn he would win the rematch.
Now he finally had.
He had won back some pride for his mother too. At last, he could stand tall instead of being treated like the kid who had not even made the top sixteen.
Let them ignore him now.
"I lost?"
Ash stared at Travis's smug face, and his vision blurred.
Was this really where it ended?
He had not even made it into the knockout rounds.
He could not accept that.
"Ash?"
Delia stood up in the stands, worried. Ash's friends stood too.
"Don't worry," Professor Oak said, rising to comfort her. "This is part of becoming a champion. Ash will learn from it."
Gary did not like that answer.
"Grandpa," he said, "Reiji won the first tournament he ever entered. Didn't he need to lose first?"
"You just didn't see what came before," Professor Oak said. "For all we know, he trained harder than any of you, sweated more than any of you, and carried more than any of you before he ever reached the Indigo Plateau. That might be why he could show up once and take the championship."
"I get it."
Gary did not press further.
He was not interested in digging up Reiji's past, and he was not going to use it as an excuse either. Pokémon did not become strong out of nowhere. If Reiji could get that strong, then Gary could too.
He believed that.
In another section of the stands, Luana watched her son beat Ash and jumped up clapping.
"That's my boy! I'll make you something good when we get home!"
Good thing she had asked the old man to get Metagross early. Without that, Travis never would have raised it this far, never built that kind of teamwork, and never beaten the other boy who looked so much like him.
At the entrance to the spectator tunnel, Reiji turned to Cissy.
"Come on. Your turn."
"Rai, wait for me."
Cissy hurried after him, chatting and laughing as if the match result had nothing to do with her.
Ever since she had learned what this tournament really was, most of her interest had faded. She would go as far as she could. That was enough. The championship was out of reach, and she knew she did not have the strength to fight for it.
Once they entered the venue, Reiji stayed in the shadow of the players' tunnel. No need to go out this time. He could wait for Cissy from here.
Her match did not take long.
When she came back, the joy on her face said everything.
She had advanced again.
Both of them had made it through the group stage. Not bad at all.
Once the knockout rounds began, though, Reiji figured Cissy was probably near her limit. Quasi–Elite Four tier would not be enough to push her into the top sixteen.
Anyone who could reach that stage would either have an Elite Four-tier Pokémon or at least a full team of quasi–Elite Four-tier fighters. Otherwise, how were they supposed to compete for the Elite Four preliminaries?
Those people had come here aiming at the Elite Four.
Reiji and Cissy left the players' tunnel together, bringing their group-stage run to an end.
Next came lunch. Their Pokémon needed to eat too.
If nothing else was scheduled in the afternoon, they would spend it at the Pokémon Center with Cissy's mother and grandfather.
The old man had not gone fishing in days, and his hands were clearly itching. Since Reiji happened to be there that afternoon, he dumped the job of guarding Senta onto him. Cissy was staying too, so he could protect both of them at once.
Reiji did not argue with an old man playing tricks. He promised to stay until the old man came back.
That was all the old man needed. He rounded up a few fishing friends, grabbed his gear, and left in high spirits.
Reiji did not sit around doing nothing at the Pokémon Center.
He sent Gengar to watch the two attackers—the ones who had tried to assassinate Senta. Once they left the hospital, Reiji planned to kill them.
He suspected the previous attempt to silence them had been done by the missing third person.
But that no longer mattered.
The third person no longer mattered either.
Whoever that person was, these two still had to die.
He waited until evening.
Cissy's grandfather finally came back, beaming like he had caught something good. Only then did Reiji and Cissy leave for the village.
But as soon as they stepped out of the Pokémon Center, they saw the two attackers being loaded into a police car.
So tonight was the night.
With Cissy's grandfather gone, moving would be much easier. Old foxes noticed too much.
Reiji watched the police car leave, but did not move. He simply walked back to the village with Cissy as if nothing had happened.
Only when they reached the building did he realize he had a new problem.
He had expected Cissy to return to her own room.
She followed him upstairs instead.
Had she gotten addicted to sleeping over?
She was basically handing herself over, and Reiji very much wanted to refuse tonight. The problem was the excuse. He kept walking, reached the door, took out the key, and still had not thought of a clean way to send her away.
Anything he said now would sound suspicious.
Then Cissy went to shower, and Reiji finally saw his chance.
When she came out, she smelled faintly sweet. No idea what shampoo or body wash she had used. She also told him not to peek because she needed to change into sleepwear.
Reiji's mouth twitched.
She had climbed into his bed herself last night. Things that should have been seen had been seen. Things that should have been touched had been touched. He could not chase her away even if he tried, and now she was pretending to be shy.
Ridiculous.
If she wanted to tempt him, she could just say so. No need for all these little turns. Older men understood these games.
Still, he obediently turned around. Once Cissy finished changing and came over, he took off his clothes and went into the bathroom.
His way out was in there.
"I'm going to soak for a while," he called. "Don't rush me."
Once inside, he had Gengar spit out his backpack. He changed quickly, pulling on a black outfit, then took out two phones. He silenced both, called one from the other, and turned on speaker.
Next came the window.
Open it, slip out, close it.
The shower kept pounding water into the bathtub. He had already told Cissy he would be soaking for at least half an hour. He should be back long before that.
Pelipper carried him away from the Trainers' village and straight toward the Pummelo City police station.
That was where the two attackers were being held.
The Senta assassination case would not be settled quickly. The League still needed to send people down to transfer the culprits, and that would take a few more days.
If the two had not been silenced earlier, they probably would have been taken away already. Their stay at the hospital had delayed everything.
But when Reiji reached the police station, black smoke was already rising from the building.
He froze.
He had not even done anything yet.
Who attacked the police station first?
He had Pelipper land by the road, then stepped on his own shadow. Gengar slipped away to check whether the two men were still inside, whether someone had rescued them, or whether this was another cleanup.
More and more people gathered nearby, all whispering about what had happened. Officer Jenny came out to push the crowd back before anyone got hurt in the crush.
Reiji left the street around the police station and waited quietly for Gengar.
It did not take long.
Gengar returned with exactly the news he needed.
"Kekeke, kekeke."
Slowking translated at once. "Gengar says both men are dead. Bitten to death. There was an Arbok scent on them, one Gengar recognized. From someone you fought before."
"Arbok?" Reiji's eyes narrowed. "Was it him? Was he the third person too?"
He knew who it was.
The Team Rocket member who had tested him before. Tai's colleague from Mandarin Island North.
So he had come back to silence them again.
Right.
Those two men knew more than just the fact that the Kanto cousin's family had ordered the attack. They also knew that the same family had joined Team Rocket.
Team Rocket probably killed them because of the second piece of information. They did not want anyone else finding out their shadow was behind this.
The two men had been unconscious for three days. Officer Jenny had not even had time to interrogate them properly. They had barely woken up, barely returned to the police station, and now they were dead.
But Cissy's father already had evidence that the cousin's family had joined Team Rocket.
For Team Rocket, silencing them did not mean much anymore.
For Reiji, though, it was perfect.
Dead men could not testify, and he did not even have to lift a finger. No trace, no risk.
"Tch. Thanks for the assist, brother. Beautiful work."
Reiji shook his head with a smile, released Pelipper again, and flew back toward the players' village.
No one noticed any of it.
He had already changed his face. Even if someone saw him, so what? A stranger had come to kill two people he supposedly did not know. That meant nothing.
Before he could make it back to the room, the phone in his hand rang.
"Rai, what are you doing? How long are you going to soak? Why is the water still running?"
Damn it.
Reiji answered immediately and had Slowking raise a psychic barrier so the wind would not carry through the phone.
"I'm taking a bath," he said. "Why? Want to join me?"
"What? No!"
Cissy blushed at once. After spending so much time with Reiji, she was used to his shamelessness. She had just been about to let go of the bathroom door handle when something clicked.
"Wait. Why did you lock the door? Are you scared I'll come in?"
The handle rattled.
Cissy tried it again and again, but the door would not open. The more it refused, the more suspicious she became.
"Stop pulling. I'll open it."
Reiji had already reached the window. He glanced at his watch.
Only a little over ten minutes had passed.
She was way too impatient.
He hung up, answered her out loud, and slipped back into the bathroom. In a few quick movements, he stripped off the black outfit, leaving only his underwear. Gengar swallowed the clothes, erasing every trace.
Click.
The bathroom door opened.
Cissy had been pushing against it, so the moment it gave way, she stumbled straight into Reiji.
They staggered backward together and toppled into the bathtub.
"I told you not to open it," Reiji said, staring at her in disbelief. "Why won't you listen?"
"I thought you were lying!"
Cissy puffed her cheeks, then lowered her head against his chest. Her whole body curled up nervously, and she refused to look at him.
"Well," Reiji said, a wicked smile spreading across his face, "you're already here. Might as well wash up together."
Cissy's cheeks went red. Her sleepwear was soaked through anyway, so there was no saving it now.
Reiji pulled her fully into the tub.
"No, wait—Rai, stop it! You're awful!"
"You came in on your own. Can't blame me for that."
Reiji laughed under his breath.
The bathroom door closed on its own, moved by a wind that was not there.
After that, only laughter and splashing came from inside.
A bathtub worked just fine for a water fight.
Far away in the Johto region, Pryce turned off the television that had been running all day. The group stage was over, and dinner had just begun.
"Pryce," Sheila asked, "when do you think he'll want his Pokémon back?"
"Hard to say. The boy's close to his limit. He should be calling Poliwrath and the other two back soon."
"He isn't even at Elite Four strength yet. If he calls Poliwrath back now, won't it just crush everything?"
"What are you imagining?" Pryce gave her a sideways look. "The League is running this Orange League tournament. They're clearly planning something big for the Orange Archipelago. The later rounds may be much harder than they look."
"Will Poliwrath be enough?" Sheila asked, worried again.
"Hard to say. Drake is in the tournament too. With Poliwrath's current strength, it should be able to take down one of his Pokémon. But Drake doesn't have just one Elite Four-tier Pokémon."
Both of them sighed at the table.
Pryce looked down at his meal and murmured, "This is as much as I can do for him. The rest of the road is his to walk."
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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