The next day, the sun was blazing, Lorelei knocked on Ash's door and then saw Mars tied up.
"Who is this...?"
"She's one of Team Galactic's four high-ranking members, known as Mars. She's also in charge of the Orange Archipelago. Last night, she confessed where Team Galactic's branch is located and where Miss Cynthia is being held," Ash said calmly as he casually placed a few cups of hot milk on the table.
Last night, he and Misty, along with Serena, had interrogated Mars and extracted quite a bit of information, most importantly, the layout of Team Galactic and Cynthia's whereabouts, all revealed by Mars.
As people of justice, they certainly wouldn't use any torturous methods that leave Mars bruised and battered. However, some types of torture are more unbearable than physical harm, like the simplest one—tickling.
Having Mewtwo completely immobilize her, then using superpower to amplify the sensations of her feet, followed by the terrifying torture of tickling, worse than lingering death.
Under such torture, even a steel-willed person would have to spill the intel!
Initially, Mars considered fooling Ash and the others with false information or perhaps had already anticipated her defeat and deliberately disclosed fake intel to lure Ash into traps.
It was a place even Cynthia suffered greatly; Mars believed that even Ash wouldn't gain any advantage by going there.
But such lies appeared as childish tricks with many holes in Mewtwo's eyes, who was like a human lie detector.
Using heart rate, tone, and emotions, Mewtwo could discern whether someone was telling the truth or lying, so Mars's deception strategy ended almost as soon as it started.
Ultimately unable to withstand the 'tickling torture,' Mars confessed the whereabouts of Team Galactic's branch and Cynthia's location, which coincidentally matched the destination of Ash and the others—Asia Island!
Team Galactic had evidently learned about the Sea God Lugia at Asia Island, a piece of information easily obtainable from Miss Joy by asking, though Miss Joy disclosed it due to her identity, but the information wasn't particularly secret.
Given Team Galactic's methods, obtaining this information wasn't surprising.
So they had long since relocated their branch to Asia Island.
However, if they merely moved to Asia Island, the league might not have been unable to discover their base. Currently, despite extensive searches, the league hadn't managed to find Team Galactic's base.
The range around Asia Island is quite limited, and while Team Galactic's branch isn't exceptionally large nor small, it's not discovered because they placed their base underwater!
No normal person, including the league, the Elites, or Ash, would think of this.
What kind of place is Asia Island? It's a region plagued by years of storms, turbulent seas, where traveling on the surface itself is extremely challenging, and the idea of placing a base underwater seems impossible.
But Team Galactic managed to create a facility that placed the entire base underwater, capable of movement beneath the sea.
This is why the league couldn't find any trace of Team Galactic.
Cynthia received the information about Team Galactic underwater, but her message got intercepted by Team Galactic before reaching the league.
Team Galactic had already prepared for Cynthia's arrival, setting traps to confine her inside the base, using the powers of gods to create a cage that even Cynthia couldn't break.
Yet they couldn't do much against Cynthia, except trap her and wait for her resources to run dry.
The positive news from Mars was that Cynthia had a space backpack containing unknown quantities of food and daily necessities, allowing her to remain quite vigorous even after being trapped for a month.
Even when Team Galactic opened the cage to check on Cynthia, she almost seized the opportunity to escape.
The cage was crafted from Palkia's power, with strong binding effects, but could not harm the person inside. The influence of space power rendered setting up surveillance inside impossible.
To observe her condition, they had to silently create an opening in the space barrier to peek in.
Cynthia instantly seized such an opening, nearly shattering the barrier from within.
After that, they hadn't attempted to check Cynthia's condition again. Regardless of her fate inside, they would only reopen the space barrier when their plan succeeded.
"...It's good Cynthia is alright. Let's head to Asia Island now," Lorelei, having heard Ash's intel, breathed a sigh of relief, her tense expression showing rare relaxation. It was fine as long as Cynthia was alright, though Cynthia probably couldn't hold on much longer—they needed to find her immediately.