Night came.
Reiji's group got ready again, but this time they were splitting up. Keith stayed at the villa. Anyone without Advanced-tier strength stayed out of the real work.
Gulzar, Sou, and the others who only had a couple of Elite-tier Pokémon would put on 1 or 2 quick acts and come back. They did not have enough Advanced-tier Pokémon to keep the act believable for long.
Tai had already sent word: Proton and Petrel had left.
To be safe, Tai had even contacted Proton himself. He asked what to do if the local powers in the city tried to interfere with the old district. Should they cut them down, or let them grow?
Proton's answer was simple.
Cut them down.
Tai then asked what they were supposed to do if an Elite Four-tier Trainer stepped in. The 2 Team Rocket officers left on Mandarin Island North were only Advanced tier. How were they supposed to deal with that?
Proton told him Elite Four-tier Trainers would not get involved. Everyone below that was their problem. If they could not handle it, they could forget the officer title and the reward, then roll back to the front lines.
Once Tai had the answer, he had Gengar deliver the message to Reiji.
Reiji brought the others to the old district.
They stood on a rooftop overlooking Duel Street. The battlefields below had already returned to their usual noise. Gamblers who had won money were slipping away one by one, trying to leave before anyone noticed how much they were carrying.
Those gamblers were perfect.
People were leaving in every direction, so Reiji's group split up too. Seven figures moved out across rooftops and alleys, each picking a target.
Reiji chose a gambler and waited along the man's route out. Poliwrath stood in front of him. Toxicroak blocked the other side.
By the time the gambler realized something was wrong, he was already trapped.
"Who are you?" The man clutched his money bag and stared into the shadows, trying to see who was there.
Reiji stepped forward.
The gambler saw the white smiling mask.
"You... Smiling Spider..."
Spinarak was crouched on Reiji's shoulder. After last night, that was enough.
That was exactly what Reiji wanted.
"If you know who I am, hand it over." Reiji held out his hand.
He did not even have to move.
The gambler pissed himself.
The Lightning Gang had ruled the old district for years. Its name alone could scare children quiet. Last night, that same gang had been wiped out.
And the people who did it were standing right in front of him.
"Please don't kill me. Please." The gambler dropped to the ground and held up the money bag with both hands. "I'll give you everything I won."
If the Lightning Gang could scare children, Spider could scare adults.
The rumors had already gotten ridiculous. People said Spider skinned victims alive, cracked bones for marrow, ate human flesh, and killed anyone who crossed them. Some versions said they were skeleton ghosts from the deep sea. If you saw the face under the mask, you would bleed from every hole and die, and then Spider would drag your soul into the dark ocean and eat it piece by piece.
By the time Reiji got close, the man had already wet himself.
Only then did Reiji realize the rumors had gone a little too far.
That was probably the crowd's fault. People really had nothing better to do than make up horror stories.
Good. Tonight could fix that. Spider did not need everyone frozen in terror. A legend was enough.
Reiji took the bag and turned away. Before he left, he let out a low, strange laugh.
"Heh. One scare and you gave it up. Pathetic."
He was gone before the gambler dared lift his head.
A cold wind blew through the alley, and the man shivered hard. That laugh had been too creepy. He had not even dared look at the mask properly.
Once he realized the alley was empty, he scrambled up and ran back toward Duel Street. His legs were numb from kneeling too long, and he fell several times, but he kept getting back up.
The moment he reached Duel Street, he shouted at the top of his lungs.
"Smiling Spider! Smiling Spider is here!"
"What? Smiling Spider?"
The name sucked the noise out of Duel Street.
Gamblers and onlookers looked around in panic. When they saw no masked figures nearby, they relaxed and turned on the man who had shouted.
"Hey, what are you yelling about? There's no one here."
"There is! Smiling Spider robbed me! Smiling Spider took my money!"
For a moment, nobody said anything.
Then the whole street burst out laughing.
"Smiling Spider robbed you? Hahaha!"
"Are you trying to make us die laughing?"
"I'm telling the truth!"
"Smiling Spider is an Elite Four-tier Trainer. Why would someone like that care about your money?"
"Smiling Spider wiped out the Lightning Gang last night. You think you're tougher than the Lightning Gang? You think you got away from them?"
"Forget him. He probably lost everything and couldn't take it."
"Yeah, ignore him. Keep battling. Keep betting."
The robbed gambler knelt there, staring at the people around him.
Why would gamblers not believe another gambler?
His hands were empty. He remembered the weight of that bag clearly. It had been full of cash.
He tried shouting again, but no one cared. Eventually his throat hurt too much, and he stopped.
Then another shout came from the east.
"Smiling Spider! Smiling Spider took my money!"
A second voice came from the west.
"Smiling Spider! I got robbed by Smiling Spider!"
Then another person stumbled in, pointing behind them in terror.
"Smiling Spider is over there!"
The laughter died.
More people came running back, each one panicked, each one saying they had been robbed by Smiling Spider.
At first, everyone had treated it as a joke.
Now there were too many victims.
And the stories did not line up. Nobody had been hurt. They had only lost their money. The Pokémon used in each robbery were different too.
Slowly, people figured it out.
Someone was using Smiling Spider's name to scare gamblers into handing over their cash.
The robbers copied the white mask, borrowed the fear, and left laughing. Some even mocked their victims for giving up after one scare.
Once that clicked, the whole street changed.
Everyone started looking at everyone else.
If a white mask was all it took to become Smiling Spider, then anyone could be one.
Duel Street was no longer safe.
By then, Reiji's group had already stopped and left.
But the rumors kept spreading through the old district.
Later that night, one bold Trainer fought back against a fake Smiling Spider and won. Nothing happened to him. No one came after him. Better yet, he got a fat bag of stolen goods.
That was when the old district lost its mind.
The rest of the night turned into masks, robberies, and chaos. Smiling Spider robbed gamblers. Smiling Spider ran into other Smiling Spiders. By the end, anyone with a white mask could be Smiling Spider, and nobody could tell which ones were real.
Reiji and the others were already gone.
They were back at the villa, sleeping comfortably in their beds.
For the first time in days, they slept without worrying.
By the time they woke up, the whole Orange Archipelago had gone crazy.
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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