The convoy was a streak of black iron against the scenic shoreline. Three armored transports, their engines a synchronized, low-frequency hum, tore across the asphalt. Flanking them were four Ace Trainers. They rode customized bikes, their uniforms sharp and their eyes scanning the treeline through visors.
Inside the central truck, the atmosphere was suffocating. L, the leader of the hunting team, sat bolted to a floor-mounted chair, preventing him from even thinking about a pokeball . He wasn't smirking anymore. He was sweating.
"You think this cage holds?" L rasped, his voice cracking as he looked at the two guards sitting opposite him.
"Shut up," one guard snapped, checking his baton. "By sunrise, you'll be in a cell that makes this truck look like a 5 star hotel."
L let out a shaky laugh. "I'm not worried about the cell. I'm worried about the silence. It's too quiet out there. Where's your 'Elite 4' protector? Where's the guy who caught me?"
"Daichi-san is on his way HQ as well speak," the guard replied. "We don't need a Elite 4 to transport a rat."
On the road, the lead Ace Trainer, a woman named Sarah, tapped her comms. "All units, we are five minutes out from the Mauville checkpoint. Keep the formation tight. The wind is picking up."
Suddenly, a sound cut through the roar of the engines , a single, high-pitched note rang at her left .
Sarah looked to her left. Her partner's bike didn't explode. It didn't crash. The bike and the trainer simply collapsed. One second, Ace Trainer was there; the next, a crumpled sphere of steel and bone was rolling harmlessly into the road.
"AMBUSH!" Sarah screamed, but her voice was swallowed by the sudden vacuum.
The remaining three Ace Trainers reacted with the precision they had trained years for. They skidded their bikes, kicking up plumes of sand, and released their Pokémon in a flash of red light.
Sarah and the remaining Aces deployed their Pokémon , a altaria , a weavile, and a hitmonchan. Against a normal opponent, they would have won through numbers. But this was a mismatch of tiers.
"Mawile, Play Rough," the Assassin commanded.The Mawile became a blur of pink and silver. It moved through the hitmonchan's fire punch, its massive steel jaws clamping shut on the hitmonchan's head. With a flick of its neck, it slammed the hitmonchan into Altaria.
Before the weavile could even build heat for a ice beam, the Mawile lunged. Its steel jaw boosted by Iron Head crashed into the weavile's chest.
The Aces were down in under a minute.
The Assassin walked toward the central transport. The Mawile followed, its steel jaws dripping with displaced blood and flesh.
With its jaws, the Mawile used Vice Grip. It bit through the reinforced steel doors with ease. The heavy metal was peeled back like a sardine can.
Inside, the two guards were frozen. Their Growlithes were snarling, but they were trembling. They couldn't move at all.
L looked up, his eyes widened with terror. "No... no.... I FOLLOWED PROTOCOL!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE !"
"Loose ends, L," the Assassin said, his voice flat and devoid of emotion through the mask.
He nodded to his Mawile. The massive jaws on the back of the Pokémon's head lunged forward, snapping shut around the headrest of L's chair and L himself. A single, clean Crunch. The witness was silenced.
By the time the sirens reached the coast, the convoy was a empty . There was no signs of life anywhere . The armored truck sat open, its interior coated in a fine mist.
In the League Command Center, the red light began to pulse.
[CONVOY SIG: TERMINATED]
[ESCORT Silver Guard: TERMINATED]
The atmosphere in the Ever Grande command center was suffocating. The hum of the massive server banks was drowned out by the frantic, voices of Council members and high-ranking officials.
A young tech officer, punched a command into the holographic interface. A pink energy spike bloomed on the main screen, overlaying the GPS coordinates of the destroyed convoy.
"Sirs!" the officer shouted over the chaos. "The forensic officers just finished the analysis. This isn't a fluke. The energy residue left at the site is filled with Fairy-type particles. Specifically, we're seeing a overlap of steel-crushing force and fairy-light signatures."
The room dipped into a momentary, confused silence as the data scrolled by.
"Power signature?" a Councilman barked, leaning over the console.
"It's a specialized build," the officer replied, his voice dropping an octave. "High Attack, high speed. Sir... we suspect the perpetrator to be Gym Leader rank trainer. A specialist who knows exactly how to dismantle League armor. They used the environment to turn our own defenses against us."
The silence that followed was heavy. A Gym Leader rank Fairy specialist was a nightmare scenario for the League's standard security. Most of the escorts relied on Dragon, Fighting, or Dark-type Pokémon, types that are inherently vulnerable to the Fairy.
The mysterious assassin's pokemon had likely shredded the escorts' teams before they could even register an opponent was there.
Eyes instinctively turned toward the head of the table. In any other situation, a high-level Fairy threat would be a non-issue for the top brass. Steven Stone, the Champion, was the premier master of the Steel-type. He was the natural "bane" of the Fairy type, a living counter to their every trick.
But the political climate was a mess. The Hunter Guild had international ties and deep-seated connections. If the Champion himself moved to eliminate a rogue trainer before a formal investigation, it would be seen as the League executing a witness to hide its own corruption. The press would call it a cover-up, other regions would call it an act of silencing.
Steven was a King on a chessboard, the most powerful piece in the region, but he was restricted by the very square he stood on.
The panic began to boil over again as the Council realized their strongest asset was sidelined.
"We need to mobilize the Mauville Rangers!"
"No, if we move the Rangers, we leave the power plant vulnerable!"
"We have to contact the Kanto League, this most likely isn't local—"
"Enough."
It was barely above a whisper, yet the word silenced the entire chaos that was running amok in the hall.
Steven stood at the head of the table. His presence seemed to fill every corner of the room. The air grew heavy, with the overwhelming pressure of a Champion.
He didn't look at the monitors. He looked at the Council. The chaotic shouting died instantly. Men who had been screaming at each other seconds ago now found it difficult to even hold their breath.
"You are debating politics while four of our trainers are being zipped into bags on a cold highway," Steven said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "The Champion's office will not be paralyzed by 'image' while a rogue specialist walks our routes."
He tapped a button on his personal console "This is now an Emergency Meeting," Steven declared. He turned his gaze toward the people. "The elite 4 is to gather and every executive is to gather at the meeting hall , Now"