On the passenger ship, Reiji had no idea that so much more had happened down in Trovitopolis's sewers after they left.
Right now, Reiji and Naoki were lounging in a corner of the balcony, soaking up the sun, letting the sea breeze wash over them, and sipping tea. At last, it felt like travel was supposed to feel.
"Boss…" Naoki sat beside him. Sunlight lit up his tense face, and every so often he'd sneak a glance at Reiji.
He'd never dared to look the leader in the eye before. Up close, though, he realized the usually stern leader was probably around his age—maybe the same.
"In public, call me boss. When no one's around, call me leader," Reiji said with a small wave, signaling him to relax. He was still wearing the face Ditto had disguised for him—a young man's face.
The difference between a young adult and a teen was obvious. One still looked too green, and it didn't carry the same weight.
"Yes, boss." Naoki nodded. He still couldn't quite bring himself to say "Zero." As an internal codename it was one thing, but saying it out loud felt too cringe.
"Last night I said I'd help you get revenge. Then you have to recover your strength first. Only once you're back to your old level—or even stronger—can you pull it off…"
"Boss, just tell me what to do. I'll do it." Since Naoki had chosen to trust him, he wasn't going to second-guess anything. He knew his road to revenge would only go farther if he relied on this mysterious leader.
He had nothing left to lose. Dying right now wouldn't even matter. The only thing that would remain was regret.
"No rush. Let me see your Pokémon first." Reiji wanted to see what kind of potential Naoki's last two Pokémon actually had.
"Here." Naoki handed over his Flygon and Swampert without hesitation. If the leader wanted them, he'd even hand over the Aggron Egg—along with the two hundred million in the bank account.
But he'd noticed something sharp last night: the leader didn't seem particularly interested in those "resources." After mentioning them once, he'd never brought them up again.
Reiji took the two Poké Balls and looked at Flygon's proficiency panel first.
[Flygon]
[Type: Ground/Dragon]
[Gender: Male]
[Potential: 63%]
[Level: 51.11%]
[Ability…]
Not bad. Real Elite Four tier potential. It was also the first Dragon-type Pokémon Reiji had ever seen on a panel.
"Flygon's solid. Elite Four tier potential. Raise it properly and breaking into Elite Four tier won't be a problem…"
"Boss… you can see a Pokémon's potential?" Naoki took the Poké Ball back, eyes wide. The ability the leader was showing was absurd. With something like that, it would be hard not to soar.
For normal people, development was always a gamble—like opening blind boxes. Unless you knew the parents' strength, you couldn't predict the floor of a Pokémon's growth, or how low it might really be.
That was why so many people got rare Pokémon and still couldn't raise them to evolution. Some forced evolution anyway, and the Pokémon didn't just lose any chance of going further—it damaged its foundation and picked up irreversible hidden injuries, retiring early from any real combat.
"What are you daydreaming about? Forgot what I have?" Reiji gave Naoki a sideways look.
Naoki instantly understood and lowered his head.
The leader had Darkrai. Then this was probably Darkrai's ability. It was a Mythical Pokémon—having strange, unfair powers wasn't strange at all.
"Boss, I spoke out of turn." Naoki apologized quickly, head down, not daring to look up. This kind of secret was something you kept in your heart. Saying it out loud just made him look immature.
Still… if anyone learned the leader could see a Pokémon's potential, they'd struggle not to feel that surge of shock and excitement.
So this was what the leader meant by "I'll help you take revenge with my own hands." Suddenly, revenge didn't feel distant anymore. It felt closer—real—like another step forward. His resolve hardened again.
No wonder the leader had dared to promise he could get revenge. This was the confidence behind it.
"Stop acting like it's the end of the world. There's a lot you still don't know." Reiji didn't care about the slip. That was the point—he was deliberately dressing the panel's power up as Darkrai's special ability.
That way, if the proficiency panel ever got exposed, he could push all of it onto Darkrai and let Darkrai take the blame. Mutual support.
As for what was real and what wasn't… anyone who wanted the truth could go ask Darkrai themselves.
A Mythical Pokémon wasn't something you could meet easily, much less make it open its mouth and spill secrets.
"Yes, boss." Naoki accepted the correction, his words full of awe and obedience. He didn't add a single extra sentence.
Reiji picked up the second Poké Ball, then tossed it back immediately. "This Swampert—take it. It's already gone."
The panel name alone was enough.
[Swampert (Deceased)]
[Type…]
Everything after that was meaningless. The name told the whole story. Maybe it had already failed sometime during the night.
Just like Naoki feared, it really hadn't made it through.
"Boss… what are you—what do you mean?" Naoki gripped the Poké Ball so hard his knuckles tightened, confusion and dread flooding his eyes.
He stared at Swampert inside, lying still. No matter how he called, there was no response.
"Swampert… Swampert, are you asleep? Wake up!" Naoki shouted until his throat strained, but Swampert stayed motionless. Right there on the balcony, he released it.
Swampert hit the floor and didn't move. Naoki lifted a hand to touch it, but froze just before contact—terrified of what cold skin would mean.
His fingers, his arms, his whole body trembled. Tears that hadn't even fully dried came back hot down his cheeks.
He wanted to scream. He wanted to collapse and wail. His chest was splitting open with grief, but no sound came out. He couldn't force it. All he could do was reach out with a shaking palm and touch the old friend who'd been with him for five or six years—Swampert.
The instant he touched it, that chill against his fingertips made his hand tighten on instinct. His fingers curled into a fist, squeezing until his nails dug into his flesh.
He knew it.
Swampert was gone. Really gone. Gone for good.
He leaned in, pressing his face and body gently against Swampert's cold form, letting that chill seep into him. He just wanted to stay like this for a moment, quietly holding onto the last trace of warmth he could pretend was still there.
"If you want to cry, then cry," Reiji said, standing to the side. He didn't look at Naoki's agony, but he still let out a silent sigh.
If a Pokémon that had stayed with him that long died like that… he'd lose his mind too. Maybe he'd go completely dark.
At that point, it wouldn't matter who came to stop him. Whoever did it would die.
No matter who stood in front of him, he'd pay any price for revenge. Even if the entire League stood in the way, he'd flip the League over and bet his life to make the culprit pay with theirs.
"Boss, I'm fine. Just got sand in my eyes." Naoki wiped the tears at the corners fast and tried to steady his breathing. But the red rims around his eyes gave him away.
After that, he returned Swampert's body to the Poké Ball. In a couple of days, once they reached land, he'd bury Swampert himself in the dirt.
As for the other four… he'd only managed to retrieve Golem's rock core. The other three partners—Magnezone, Magcargo, and Exeggutor—had all died in that battle protecting him. He hadn't even been strong enough to take their bodies back.
Right now, he hated himself more than anything. Hated how useless he was. Hated how stupid he was.
All because of blind arrogance. All because he believed two promises and rushed into an alliance. He hadn't protected his subordinates, and he'd watched the partners who'd been with him for years leave him one by one.
He hated his ignorance. He hated his arrogance. He was trash. A loud-mouthed idiot…
He hated it.
He regretted it.
He regretted that decision so much it made him sick.
And then, as Naoki drowned in pain and self-blame, he suddenly saw an Egg in front of him—one Swampert had been holding tightly.
A Pokémon Egg with a blue shell and orange patterns. Swampert had been hiding it beneath its body the whole time, and Naoki hadn't noticed.
When he recalled Swampert, the Egg finally showed itself.
"This is… Swampert's Egg? It left me an Egg?" Naoki stared, disbelief punching through him—and then the tears surged again.
He dropped heavily to his knees on the deck and carefully lifted the Egg into his arms, crying with grief and relief tangled together.
"Incubator." Seeing that, Reiji pulled an incubator from his backpack. It was one of the things he'd stolen yesterday. His bag was stuffed full of random junk—so of course it included an incubator.
"Thank you." Naoki took it and immediately placed Swampert's Egg inside.
Staring at that blue shell carrying hope, something in him lit again. It was the only bloodline Swampert had left behind.
Naoki decided he would hatch it, and he would raise that child with everything he had.
He swore that even if he died first one day, he'd make sure Swampert's child would never be harmed.
This time, no matter what, he would protect the life inside that Egg—even if it cost him his own.
Maybe it was guilt. Maybe it was debt. Either way, he wanted to make it right, even if it took the rest of his life.
"Swampert's Egg takes about twenty days to hatch." Reiji pulled out a book on Pokémon Egg incubation cycles.
After checking that, he flipped to Aggron's incubation cycle, and it was a full thirty-five days.
Seriously?
No wonder. An Aggron baby—its cycle was almost catching up to a pseudo-legendary.
Aggron was a Steel-type Pokémon. Once fully grown, it was massive—its bulk rivaled Tyranitar's. Both were huge brutes, but being Steel-type made Aggron even heavier.
"Boss, I'm going to hatch Swampert's Egg. I also have an Aggron Egg, so…" Naoki first took Swampert's Egg back into the room. When he returned, he brought up the Aggron Egg.
"No need. I don't want your Egg." Reiji waved him off. He could barely afford to feed Rhyhorn as it was, and as his strength grew, Rhyhorn's appetite just kept growing with it.
Aggron was a powerful frontline wall, sure, but raising it properly meant feeding an absurd amount. Another bottomless-pit Pokémon on top of that? He couldn't carry it.
Rhyhorn was enough. He wasn't Steven—he didn't have a mine at home.
"Yes, boss." Naoki couldn't even give the Egg away. He sighed to himself, thinking the leader really did look down on ordinary Pokémon.
After all, the leader's Pokémon were rare—Gengar, and an even rarer Mythical Pokémon like Darkrai.
"There's no obstacle you can't cross. If you want revenge, you need to rebuild fast. You've got three Pokémon now. Flygon can still fight, but Dragon-types take forever to grow. Aron also has a long growth cycle…"
"Even if you had unlimited metal ore, getting Aron to Elite Four tier would still take seven or eight years. You can't shrink that time—unless you feed Aron high-energy food nonstop…"
"And Swampert… it's that Swampert's offspring. You raised it yourself. You know its talent better than anyone. Raising it to Elite Four tier will still take five or six years too—unless you can supply high-energy food without limits. But can you wait that long?"
"As long as I can get revenge, I can wait ten years, twenty years—even thirty." Naoki clenched his fist, gaze rock-steady. In his heart, he swore he would repay this blood debt for his partners, even if it cost his life.
"Then it gets a lot simpler. The Orange Archipelago has plenty of uninhabited islands. Ore won't be an issue. You can take your Pokémon out to those wild islands, prospect for mines, and find ownerless ore. It'll be enough to feed what you have."
But Reiji wasn't stuck on resources.
What he was really thinking about was what kind of Pokémon Naoki should choose next.
After careful thought, he decided Naoki should abandon Rock-, Ground-, and Steel-type Pokémon and switch to raising Water-types instead…
They were in the Orange Archipelago. The most common Pokémon you ran into were Water-, Grass-, Bug-, and Flying-types—those four.
Water-types were the most common of all. The islands also had plenty of Grass-, Bug-, and Flying-types.
In an environment like the Orange Archipelago, Water-types had a natural advantage. As long as you could handle Electric- and Grass-types properly, Water-types could move freely through the archipelago.
Other types existed too, but wild ones were hard to find. If Naoki wanted to recover fast, he had to start in the Orange Archipelago with the common wild Pokémon he could actually catch.
For someone desperate to rebuild strength, catching and raising a few common Water-types from the Orange Archipelago was easily the best option.
(End of chapter)
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