For several seconds after Mega Lucario appeared, nobody said a word. Shun looked like he could barely contain himself, his eyes fixed on Lucario with unmistakable pride. Reiji understood the feeling. He had seen Mega Evolution plenty of times in games and animation in his previous life, and Gengar had already shown him what it looked like in this world, but watching another Trainer and Pokémon trigger it together was completely different.
The bond between Shun and Lucario had been visible in the transformation itself. The Key Stone and Lucarionite had answered each other, light and Aura flowing between them until Lucario changed. Seeing it happen from only a few steps away carried a weight no screen ever could.
Shingo finally found his voice. "So that's Mega Evolution…"
He had seen Lucario before, but the Pokémon standing beside Shun now simply felt different—sharper, stronger, its presence impossible to mistake even without a battle to prove it. A.J. pinched his own arm hard enough to wince. "Okay. Definitely awake."
Tai was quieter. He had already seen enough of Team Rocket's research to know that Pokémon could undergo changes far stranger than ordinary evolution, but that only left him with more questions. "So this is what they meant by an ancestral transformation…"
Daishi had come downstairs too late to hear most of the explanation. He leaned toward Naoki. "Naoki, what did I miss?"
"Later." Naoki never took his eyes off Mega Lucario. "Just watch."
Reiji folded his arms and studied Lucario along with everyone else. Gengar could Mega Evolve too, and somehow it had learned to do it without any help from him, but its transformations had always seemed to lack something. Watching Shun and Lucario do it together made him realize what that was: the transformation belonged to both of them.
"Lu."
Mega Lucario examined its changed body, flexing its paws and testing the new strength running through it. It had experienced Mega Evolution before, but the rush clearly hadn't become ordinary yet.
A familiar chuckle drifted up from Reiji's shadow, and Gengar emerged with its usual grin before floating toward Lucario. Reiji narrowed his eyes. He knew that look.
"What are you doing out here?"
"Gen, gen."
Of course. Lucario had gotten everyone's attention, and Gengar couldn't possibly allow that to stand.
Reiji sighed. "Fine. Show them."
Gengar dropped to the floor. No Key Stone answered it and no Mega Stone appeared; light simply erupted from Gengar itself, flooding the room as its outline twisted and changed. When the glare faded, Mega Gengar stood in its place, and the atmosphere in the room changed with it.
Lucario was powerful, but it had not yet reached Elite Four tier. Gengar had, and the pressure coming from its Mega-Evolved form made that difference immediately obvious. Everyone who had only just recovered from Lucario's transformation fell silent all over again.
Shingo snapped his gaze from Reiji to Mega Gengar. "Gengar can Mega Evolve too?"
That alone would have been enough to surprise him, but what really bothered him was how it had happened. A.J. stared at Reiji's empty hands. "Hold on. You didn't do anything."
Shun noticed the same thing almost immediately. "Reiji-nii, where's its Mega Stone?"
Reiji had known someone would ask eventually. "This is a little different. What Gengar does is closer to the Bond Phenomenon. Mega Evolution through a Mega Stone still requires a strong bond between Trainer and Pokémon, but reaching something like this without one takes that bond much further."
Tai blinked. "You can transform a Pokémon through the bond alone?"
"In theory."
That was safe enough to tell them. The Bond Phenomenon existed in this world, so there was no reason Ash had to be the only Trainer who could ever experience something similar. Actually achieving it, however, was another matter entirely.
If ordinary Mega Evolution with a Mega Stone was difficult, triggering a comparable transformation through sheer bond alone was in another league. There was no Mega Stone to provide a clear mechanism, no obvious threshold to work toward, and no reliable way to know whether a Trainer was even close.
More importantly, Gengar wasn't doing that at all. Its transformation came from pushing its own energy beyond its normal limit, and Reiji had simply borrowed the Bond Phenomenon as a convenient explanation. Whether anyone else in Spider could genuinely reach that state one day would depend on them and their Pokémon.
"Don't make that your priority," Reiji continued. "Start looking for Mega Stones instead. That route is much more realistic. If you find a stone you can't identify, keep it somewhere safe and bring it to me later. I'll tell you whether it's actually a Mega Stone and which Pokémon it belongs to."
More people had drifted downstairs while they were talking, drawn by the commotion. Reiji waited until he had their attention before raising his voice.
"That applies to the rest of you too. Keep an eye out for unusual stones, but keep everything you heard tonight inside this villa. A Mega Stone is worth a fortune to the right Trainer, and you've all seen why. Once people understand what they can do, fights over them are inevitable."
He looked toward the lower-ranked members in particular. "Most of you aren't strong enough to get involved in that kind of fight. Don't see a Mega Stone and suddenly decide you're willing to die for it. Reaching Elite Four tier comes first. Mega Evolution is powerful, but it won't magically make up for everything else you're missing."
That was why Reiji hadn't called everyone downstairs for Shun's demonstration in the first place. Knowing Mega Evolution existed was useful; convincing themselves they needed a Mega Stone immediately was not.
Gulzar understood the warning better than most. "Got it, Rai-nii."
He headed upstairs without argument. If a strange stone crossed his path naturally, he could hang on to it, but fighting someone powerful enough to already know what a Mega Stone was? Absolutely not. The others who had wandered down reluctantly followed him, curiosity losing out to basic self-preservation.
Once they were gone, Reiji turned back toward Naoki, Tai, A.J., and Shingo. He could practically see Shingo assembling the next question in his head, and sure enough, the newly appointed intelligence chief spoke first.
"Boss, so far we know Number Four's Lucario can Mega Evolve. Your Gengar can do it, and you said the same about Blastoise and Sharpedo." Shingo leaned forward. "You know more species, don't you?"
Everyone looked at Reiji. That information mattered; if they knew which Pokémon were capable of Mega Evolution, they would know which stones were worth prioritizing.
Reiji smiled. "That's the right question. Your Scizor can."
Shingo's eyes lit up.
"Number Two's Gengar can too." Reiji glanced toward Tai, then turned to A.J. "And you have a Gengar as well."
A.J. immediately caught what Reiji had left out. "Boss. What about Sandslash?"
Reiji gave him an apologetic shrug. "No idea. I've never heard of Sandslash having a Mega Evolution."
A.J. looked personally betrayed by the universe, but Reiji was already turning toward Naoki. "Same problem with your Flygon. I don't know of a Mega Evolution for it either."
That one had always annoyed Reiji. If every species in this world truly had some dormant ancestral form waiting to be uncovered, perhaps Flygon and Sandslash had transformations nobody had discovered yet. For now, though, he could only work with the information he actually possessed. Poliwrath was in the same position—powerful, versatile, and one of the Pokémon closest to him, yet as far as Reiji knew, it had no Mega Evolution either.
Shingo wasn't discouraged. "Then what else do we know?"
Shun answered before Reiji could. "My teacher mentioned Heracross, Gallade, Blaziken, Medicham…"
Shingo slowly turned toward him. Heracross, Gallade, Blaziken, Medicham, Lucario—every name Shun had given them was a Fighting type. Add the fact that Number Four had received Lucarionite from his teacher, and Shingo was beginning to form a very good idea of who that teacher might be.
"Because—" Shun started.
"No." Reiji cut him off immediately. "That's enough. Go upstairs and get some rest. We can talk about the rest later."
Shun realized what he had almost given away. "Right."
He placed a hand against Lucario, ending the Mega Evolution, then headed upstairs with it. At the turn in the staircase, he glanced back once before disappearing from sight.
Reiji waited until he was gone. "All right. The list I know isn't complete, so write this down instead of trusting your memory."
He started with Naoki. "Sharpedo, Pinsir, Aggron, Gengar, Swampert, Gyarados, Scizor, Tyranitar. Those are all species you should watch for."
Tai was already reaching for the notebook he carried with him. Rather than trying to keep up, he handed it to Reiji along with a pen. "Write them down."
"Good idea."
Reiji added Houndoom, Metagross, Alakazam, and the other species he could remember that were relevant to their teams, avoiding duplicates where possible. When he finished, he passed the notebook back, and Tai immediately ran through the names again to make sure he hadn't missed anything.
Reiji turned to Shingo. "You've also got Metagross and Sceptile."
Shingo nodded, committing both to memory. A.J., meanwhile, waited expectantly until it became obvious Reiji had nothing else to add.
"That's it?"
"For your team? That's everything I know."
A.J. looked miserable, and Reiji laughed. "Relax. Having six Pokémon that can Mega Evolve wouldn't mean you could use all six at once."
That got everyone's attention again. "Under normal circumstances, a Trainer can only sustain one Mega Evolution at a time," Reiji explained. "Trying to maintain a second would put far more strain on the Trainer. Very few people could handle it safely."
Shingo glanced toward the stairs where Shun had disappeared. "That makes sense. Number Four only maintained Lucario's Mega Evolution for a short time, but he was visibly tired when he ended it. So Mega Evolution probably isn't something you keep active casually. It's a trump card."
Naoki and A.J. exchanged looks. Neither had noticed Shun's fatigue; they had been too busy staring at Lucario.
Shingo opened his laptop again and began organizing what they had learned, which immediately drew Reiji's attention.
"Speaking of things you shouldn't do casually…" Reiji nodded toward the screen. "Don't keep Spider's sensitive information on a computer that connects to outside networks."
Shingo paused.
"There are Pokémon that can move directly through electronic systems," Reiji continued. "If one gets into your machine, it could steal everything before you even know it was there."
Instead of looking concerned, Shingo raised an eyebrow and turned the laptop around. A Pokémon filled the screen, its body smooth and rounded rather than angular, and the faint smile on Shingo's face told Reiji he had walked straight into something.
"You mean something like this?"
For once, Shingo had actually managed to surprise him.
"That's Porygon2," Shingo explained. "Its earlier form is Porygon. I upgraded mine into Porygon2 after training it for electronic work. It handles my data collection, sorting, security, and most of the firewall maintenance. This computer is basically its home."
He gave the laptop a light tap. "Come out and say hello."
A flash spilled from the computer, and Porygon2 emerged from the machine before taking shape in the room, its polished body carrying the same rounded design that had been displayed on the screen a moment earlier.
Reiji stared at it, then laughed. "You actually have one."
Of course he did. Someone as obsessed with computers and intelligence gathering as Shingo was practically destined to own a Porygon, and Shingo finally got to enjoy being the person with the surprise for once.
"I couldn't do half my work without it," Shingo said. "Porygon2 gathers data, organizes it, checks for intrusions, and maintains the computer's defenses. If someone tries to break into this machine, they have to get past it first."
He ran a hand over Porygon2's head, and the Pokémon leaned into his palm. The confidence was understandable, but Reiji still shook his head.
"Don't get careless. Tonight's information is too important to trust to any electronic system. Spider's membership, what we discussed about reaching Elite Four tier, Mega Evolution, the Bond Phenomenon—none of that belongs on a connected computer."
Shingo glanced toward Porygon2, but Reiji continued before he could object.
"You have a Porygon2. Great. But Mega Evolution was supposed to be impossible until tonight too. Can you guarantee nobody out there has developed something beyond Porygon2? A Porygon3, Porygon4, or something else entirely?"
Reiji didn't need to prove such a Pokémon existed. Shingo only needed to admit that he couldn't prove it didn't, and for information this dangerous, that uncertainty was enough.
Shingo considered the argument for only a few seconds before nodding. "Fair."
He turned toward Porygon2. "Delete everything I recorded tonight. Wipe it completely, including anything recoverable."
"Pory, pory."
Porygon2 dissolved into blue light and slipped back into the laptop. Files began disappearing from the screen almost immediately, followed by the temporary data and traces Shingo had asked it to remove.
Reiji watched until the process finished, satisfied with how quickly Shingo had accepted the risk. That was one of the reasons he wanted him handling Spider's intelligence: he could argue when something didn't make sense, but once he understood the problem, he acted instead of letting pride get in the way.
Porygon2 itself was still interesting. Reiji certainly wasn't going to dismiss a Pokémon capable of moving through cyberspace and directly managing electronic systems, though if Rotom eventually became common in this world, Shingo would have an entirely different kind of electronic specialist to compare against it.
By then, however, Reiji was running out of energy. The adrenaline had worn off, and the entire night was catching up with him at once: bringing Shingo into Spider, rearranging the rankings, revealing Zapdos, handing out the advancement manuscript, watching Shun's Mega Evolution, explaining Gengar's transformation, and now discussing Mega Stones and computer security.
He yawned and rubbed his eyes. "You guys keep talking if you want. I'm going to bed."
Before leaving, Reiji took back Blastoise and Sharpedo's Mega Stones and recalled both Pokémon. They had gotten exactly what he wanted from Shun's demonstration; now they knew what those stones could eventually allow them to become.
He had barely taken a few steps toward the stairs when Naoki called after him.
"Boss. What about the traitor?"
Reiji stopped and glanced toward Gai, who was still lying where the others had left him after the punishment. "Check if he's still breathing. If he is, finish it. Then dump the body at sea."
Naoki nodded. "I'll handle it."
That was enough for Reiji. He continued upstairs without looking back while Naoki crossed the room and checked Gai for a pulse. Finding one, faint but present, he gave a quiet order to the Pokémon beside him, and a moment later it was over. There was no ceremony or final speech; Gai had betrayed Spider, and Spider had already passed judgment.
Naoki called Flygon over and sent it out above the sea with the body. Far from the villa, a cutting gust scattered what remained before it reached the water, leaving the waves to erase the rest.
Shingo watched the disposal from a distance, a chill running down his back. He had already understood that Spider was not a harmless club of Trainers helping each other raise Pokémon, but tonight had made the other half of that lesson impossible to ignore. Betrayal had consequences here, and Naoki clearly had no hesitation about carrying them out.
Tai left soon afterward. His position inside Team Rocket made staying at the villa unnecessarily risky, and after everything he had learned tonight, he had plenty to think about on his own.
"I won't stay here," he told the others as he pulled on his dark coat. "I'll come by again when I can."
A.J. lasted only a little longer before yawning his way upstairs, leaving Naoki and Shingo alone in the living room. Shingo shut down the laptop, slid it carefully into its bag, and zipped it closed.
Naoki waited until he was finished. "Come on. I'll show you your room."
The villa had more than enough space. Even with over a dozen people staying there tonight, the second floor still had rooms available, while most of the third floor remained empty. Naoki found Shingo a room and then retired to his own.
One by one, the remaining doors closed. Soon the entire villa was silent, with Spider's secrets, Mega Evolution, and the blood spilled between them all hidden behind its walls until morning.
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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