Too bad there was no type advantage this time. Reiji also had no idea whether Poliwrath had landed a critical hit. The Gem boosted the move's power too, but Gems were single-use items. One attack, one Gem gone.
That full-power combination attack reminded him of a Z-Move. Both were built around one huge burst of damage. For something below Elite Four tier to injure an Elite Four-tier Pokémon that badly, calling it comparable to a Z-Move with around 200 base power was not much of a stretch.
"You've made me angry, kid." The man in the jacket finished giving Feraligatr emergency treatment, recalled it, and stood up. His eyes were cold. "I was going to leave you a way out. Not anymore."
"Don't act like you were ever going to let me go." Reiji let out a cold laugh. He understood people like this too well. Since they were already enemies, he might as well push it all the way. Even if the net tore, the fish might still survive.
He took out a Poké Ball, ready to finish the man here. If Feraligatr was his only Elite Four-tier Pokémon, this forest would be his grave.
"You still want to fight? You're not running?" The man almost laughed from sheer anger. What had given this kid the idea that he could stand against an Elite Four-tier Trainer?
Was it because that Poliwrath had used some strange combination move and forced a trade with Feraligatr? Did he really think that was enough for a quasi–Elite Four-tier team to challenge an Elite Four-tier Trainer? What an arrogant little brat.
"Go, Steelix."
Steelix crashed down into the crater, and the ground shook under its weight. When it reared up, it was almost 10 meters tall, as high as a three- or four-story building.
Beside something that huge, a human looked like a speck beneath its gaze.
Then came Arbok, flicking its tongue as it slid to the man's side. A rotten poisonous stench leaked from its mouth, and black venom gleamed on its fangs. Its cold slit pupils locked onto Reiji.
"Tch. Really? That's how you want to play?" Reiji muttered. The man was too far away to hear him, but the moment Steelix appeared, Reiji's will to fight vanished.
Steelix and Arbok were both Elite Four tier. Gengar had already warned him. If it had only been Arbok, Reiji could still have tried to gamble with Gengar. But Steelix had absurd Defense. There was no way to play around that.
Gengar asked whether it should come out and fight. Reiji refused. This was not the time to expose Gengar.
He quickly switched Poké Balls, pretending he was about to throw one. Then he turned, released Pelipper, recalled Scyther with an empty Poké Ball, climbed onto Pelipper, and shot into the trees.
Before leaving, he shouted back, "You old bastard, that's cheating!"
"Heh. Run?" The man recalled Steelix and sent the smaller, more agile Arbok after him. "Where do you think you're going? Arbok, chase him."
Arbok shot into the forest like an arrow. In the blink of an eye, it was already on Reiji.
Reiji had expected the snake to come after him. He had no intention of fighting it. Pelipper could not outrun Arbok inside the forest, so he had it pull straight up and climb above the trees.
Arbok reached the canopy and hissed in fury. It spat Poison Sting after Poison Sting, but Pelipper dodged them easily as it rose higher and higher.
The man came after him on Pidgeot. Seeing Reiji pull away in an instant, he recalled Arbok and chased after him from the air.
His eyes were full of hatred as he closed in. He would not be satisfied until he ground this kid into dust. Feraligatr had been badly hurt because of him.
And the kid was slippery. In only a few minutes, he had crippled the man's two best subordinates. One was dead, the other badly injured, and every one of their Pokémon had been stolen.
He had already called a rescue team. As long as his men survived, there would still be time to fix this. Once he got their Pokémon back, he would let them collect the debt themselves.
He wanted this kid dead.
Reiji saw the man bearing down on him. Arbok was gone, so he dove back into the forest.
The man released Arbok again the moment Reiji dipped into the trees. Reiji had no choice but to pull Pelipper back into the air and keep circling, leading the chase deeper toward Mt. Silver.
After flying straight from the passenger ship to shore, he was already far from New Bark Town. Running that way was no longer realistic. Ahead of him was only the deep forest around Mt. Silver—untouched wilderness, protected zones, and even Moltres's territory.
It was not that Reiji could not flee toward New Bark Town.
He simply did not want to let the man behind him go.
With Feraligatr crippled, the man had shown only Steelix, Arbok, and Pidgeot. Including Feraligatr, that left two unknown Pokémon.
Reiji did not believe the last two were also Elite Four tier. If they were, the man would have used them to block him instead of letting him keep running.
There were only two possibilities.
The first was that the man was letting him run on purpose, confident he could not escape. But after Feraligatr had been crippled, Reiji did not believe he could still be that arrogant unless he had no brain at all.
The second was more likely: the last two Pokémon could not stop Reiji. They would be smashed too quickly, the same way Feraligatr had been injured. If an Elite Four-tier Pokémon had suffered that badly, anything weaker would only fare worse. Sending out weak Pokémon would be meaningless.
So the man's last two Pokémon were probably quasi–Elite Four tier at best. Reiji was not worried about that. Even Rhydon could deal with them quickly.
All he had to do was last until night. Then Gengar could move.
The chase dragged on through the forests around Mt. Silver. Pelipper flew nearly the whole day, and Reiji kept pulling the man farther from any roads or towns. Whenever Gengar sensed a powerful wild Pokémon's territory nearby, Reiji turned away before they got too close.
To the man chasing him, that only made Reiji look even more suspicious. That hidden Dark-type Pokémon had to be helping him avoid danger, just as it had helped him dodge the ambush on the ship.
By now, the man had calmed down. He had to keep something in reserve. Who knew what kind of Pokémon that hidden Dark-type really was?
Night finally fell. Reiji had Pelipper land in the forest, then released his Pokémon so they could eat dinner. The man did not chase him in immediately. They had both taken breaks around noon; if they kept going nonstop, even they would burn out.
Night was Reiji's ground.
After being chased all day, it was time for him to make the first move.
Unfortunately for him, the man also believed night was Arbok's ground. Once he caught his breath, he planned to hunt Reiji down. If his Flying-type Pokémon had been fast enough, he would have chopped the boy to pieces already.
After dinner, Poliwrath had recovered most of its strength. Reiji recalled Pelipper and let both Pelipper and Pidgeot rest. Then he released Spinarak and Golbat to search for the man in the forest.
The man was not far away. Arbok had been watching Reiji's movements the whole time to keep him from slipping away in the dark. It did not notice Spinarak and Golbat searching the area. Night was full of nocturnal Pokémon, so they blended in easily.
Since Reiji had not run, the man took the chance to rest. His Pokémon might be Elite Four tier, but Pidgeot was not. He himself was not superhuman either. After a full day of chasing this kid, he needed a break.
The boy really could run. He had tried to push Pidgeot several times, but Reiji slipped away every time like a fish through his fingers.
What he did not know was that Reiji was already moving toward him with his Pokémon, preparing a killing blow.
Who would expect a Trainer below Elite Four tier to attack an Elite Four-tier Trainer first? That was exactly why it could work.
As for why the man did not call for backup?
Please. He was an Elite Four-tier Trainer. He still had pride. If word got out that he had chased a weak kid for an entire day and still failed to catch him, people would laugh themselves sick.
The higher someone stood, the more they cared about face.
Even if he lost Reiji completely, a man like this would not ask for help. The people who came might not be reinforcements. They might just come to laugh.
Rustle.
The man was drinking water when he heard movement in the forest. He immediately went alert and scanned the trees, ordering Arbok to watch the surroundings—especially for that slippery kid.
But Reiji's ambush was built to kill in one strike.
Poliwrath and Scyther charged straight at Arbok in the tree.
Arbok was already a night hunter. Darkness suited it perfectly. Poliwrath's frontal strike failed to land cleanly, blocked by Protect.
After seeing what had happened to Feraligatr, Arbok did not dare take Poliwrath's fist head-on, even without Poliwrath going all out.
Poliwrath's job was to force out Protect from the front. Scyther came from behind.
But Arbok reacted as if it had eyes in the back of its head. Scyther's blade met Iron Tail with a sharp metallic ring.
Both surprise attacks failed.
At the same time, Rhydon moved. Rock armor wrapped around its body, and it spun toward the man with Drill Run.
The man threw a Poké Ball without hesitation. Steelix appeared in front of him, taking the intercept position. It swung its tail straight at the charging Rhydon.
The moment Rhydon felt Steelix's pressure, it did not dare take Iron Tail directly. Steel-type moves hit it for x2 damage.
Rhydon stopped Drill Run at once and raised both arms to block. Steelix's tail slammed into it and drove it back more than 10 meters before it finally held the blow.
Then came the real attack.
Gyarados's Hyper Beam tore out of the forest, aimed straight at the man.
The man saw both of his Elite Four-tier bodyguards tied down. Panic flashed across his face as the thick beam rushed toward him. He released his remaining Pokémon, Medicham, in front of him and shouted, "Protect!"
"Cham!" Medicham had barely appeared before it was staring down the oncoming beam. It raised its hands at once and used Protect to shield itself and its Trainer.
So that's the fifth one, Reiji thought. One left. Or maybe more.
Since the man had not released all his Pokémon, Reiji could not be sure how many he had. The safest assumption was six. He needed to force out every last card.
The moment Medicham appeared, Toxicroak burst out of the grass behind the man and went straight for him.
This was the third killing blow.
The man had no time to react to Toxicroak behind him. A Protect barrier rose at his back, stopping the poison jab that glimmered with a dark, poisonous sheen.
"Toxicroak?" The man turned and went pale. "How do you have a Toxicroak?"
Toxicroak was completely outside his expectations. How had the kid hidden a Pokémon like that?
"There's a lot you don't know." Reiji smiled and snapped his fingers.
A black shadow rose from the man's own shadow.
Gengar moved.
The fourth killing blow.
Gengar grabbed the man's feet and dragged him down into the darkness. If Medicham had not finished blocking Hyper Beam and pulled him back, the man would have been dragged under and killed.
"This is… that Dark-type Pokémon?" The moment his legs sank into the shadow, terror exploded through the man's chest.
He had misjudged Reiji's strength.
Poliwrath and Scyther had tied down Arbok. Rhydon had held Steelix. Gyarados had forced Medicham to block from the front. Then came Toxicroak from behind, and the Pokémon in his shadow.
The kid did not have a single Elite Four-tier Pokémon, but these Pokémon were not far off. Especially that heavily armored Rhydon—it had actually stopped Steelix's Iron Tail. Ridiculous. Completely ridiculous.
Medicham was a Psychic type, and the man had kept it to guard against the hidden Dark-type Pokémon. He had never imagined Arbok and Steelix would both be tied down first.
Two Elite Four-tier Pokémon had been occupied by four of the kid's Pokémon. Scyther and Poliwrath held Arbok; Rhydon and Gyarados tied up Steelix. That opened the way for the two attackers.
The moment Steelix and Arbok realized their Trainer was in danger, they abandoned their advantage. Even though both had been winning their fights, they rushed back at once. Poliwrath and the others could not stop them.
Arbok arrived first. It coiled its tail around its Trainer, opened its mouth, flicked its tongue, bared its venomous fangs, and roared at the shadow on the ground.
Snarl.
The man clamped his hands over his ears and hid behind Medicham's psychic barrier, enduring Arbok's roar.
Gengar could endure a x2 Snarl if it had to, but that did not mean it wanted to sit there and take it.
Between Medicham's Psychic and Arbok's tail, Gengar could no longer pull the man away. So it bit Medicham's foot, then the man's foot, injected poison into both, and retreated.
The man's upper body was protected by Medicham's psychic barrier, so Snarl did not hit him directly. His legs were another story. The pain drilling up from his foot nearly made him black out.
When Arbok dragged Medicham and the man out of the shadow, both had black-purple marks spreading from their feet.
Medicham could resist Gengar's poison for a while.
The man could not.
Once he broke free of the shadow, he was drenched in cold sweat. His whole body had gone clammy. He stared at his poisoned lower leg. The venom was spreading fast, climbing toward his thigh. His face turned green.
He did not have long.
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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