Fairchild Island.
After spending most of the day in the air, Reiji finally reached the island shortly before sunset.
He didn't head inland right away. The beach was washed in orange evening light, his Pokémon still needed dinner, and Cissy had yet to appear. If she really was following the tracker she had planted on him, this was as good a place as any to stop and wait.
Reiji built a fire and started cooking, and for a moment the whole scene reminded him of his first miserable days surviving on this island. The difference was almost comical. Back then, he had scavenged for practically everything. Now he had proper camping gear, plenty of food, clean clothes, and enough supplies in his bag to make life in the wilderness comfortable.
He released Pidgeot and Rhydon while dinner cooked.
Pidgeot recognized the island immediately. It shot into the sky, circled once over the familiar forest, then gave an excited cry and flew straight toward the island's interior.
Rhydon had the exact opposite reaction. It looked at the familiar shoreline, grunted, and sat heavily in the sand.
Reiji walked over. "You're not going home?"
"Rhy…"
Rhydon waved one thick arm dismissively.
It knew exactly what awaited it in the middle of the island. Pidgeot might be thrilled to see its family again, but Rhydon still hadn't reached Elite Four tier. Going back now probably meant getting beaten around by its father for failing to meet expectations.
Reiji couldn't understand the actual explanation, but Rhydon's reluctance was obvious enough.
"Fine. Stay here, then."
He went back to dinner.
Riku's sworn brother and his men arrived in the waters around Fairchild Island not long afterward.
They stayed well offshore rather than landing. The signal on their communicator confirmed that Reiji had stopped somewhere along the coast, and one of their Pokémon had already been sent ahead to verify his position. The tracker who had followed Reiji all day was still farther out at sea, so Riku's brother ordered him to meet them first.
Roughly twenty kilometers from Fairchild Island, on a barren rock barely large enough to call an islet, the four men finally gathered.
The tracker arrived with news none of them had expected.
"Boss, we've got a complication." He pulled out a photograph. "Someone else was following him. I stayed far enough back that this was the best picture I could get, but it's a woman."
Riku's brother snatched the photo from his hand.
Even blurred by distance, the red hair was unmistakable. His expression changed immediately.
"Cissy?"
The others looked at him.
"Mikan Gym Leader," Riku's brother said. "The Madman's daughter."
The second mate frowned. "Why is she following Reiji?"
Riku's brother looked at the photo again and gave a knowing grin. "Why do you think?"
The amusement didn't last long. Cissy herself wasn't a serious threat, and she wasn't an Elite Four-tier Trainer. Her father, however, was another matter entirely.
"Is her father really that strong?" the younger second mate asked.
Riku's brother gave him a look. "You have no idea."
Years ago, Cissy's father had earned the nickname Madman by crushing nearly every notable Trainer of his generation in the Orange Archipelago. He had been overwhelmingly strong, loud about it, and aggressive enough that an entire generation had learned to dread being matched against him.
Even the Black Ship captain had once been forced to live in his shadow.
After the Orange League tournament, the captain had specifically warned Riku's brother not to provoke Mikan Gym. Whatever else they intended to do in the coming months, starting a fight with that family was off the table.
Worse, this ambush wasn't an authorized operation in the first place. Riku's brother was settling a personal grudge, and only the men he trusted most knew what he was planning.
The first mate understood the problem immediately. "If she gets caught in the fight and her father comes after us, we're screwed."
Riku's brother said nothing for a moment.
A random Gym Trainer disappearing on an isolated island was one thing. The Orange Archipelago was already sliding toward chaos, and an investigation into one missing Trainer could easily stall out or disappear beneath larger problems.
Cissy was different.
If she vanished, her father would tear through the islands looking for whoever had touched her. Riku's brother had no illusions about carrying out an attack like this without leaving a single trace behind. Given enough determination, someone would eventually uncover something.
The real question was whether anyone cared enough to keep digging.
Cissy's father absolutely would.
"We change the plan," Riku's brother decided. "Nobody moves yet. We wait until they're both asleep."
The others listened closely.
"We take the girl out of the fight first. Knock her unconscious without hurting her. Then we kill Reiji quietly and leave before she wakes up."
The first mate nodded. "Works for me. We could use some rest anyway."
They had been flying for most of the day themselves. The first mate sat down, opened his pack, and passed food around to both the men and their Pokémon before turning back to the tracker.
"Keep watching them. The moment both of them settle down for the night, report back."
"Understood."
The tracker ate quickly, fed his Wingull, then sent it back into the air. The little Pokémon flew toward Fairchild Island once more, circling high enough above the coast to blend in with the wild Wingull while keeping watch on Reiji's camp.
Back on the beach, Reiji stood watching the last edge of the sun sink toward the horizon.
Cissy still hadn't appeared, and that was starting to bother him. If she had been following the tracker, she should have noticed by now that he had stopped moving. With Slowking's Teleport available to her, catching up should have been easy.
Unless she had already caught up.
Reiji glanced toward the forest. Maybe she had arrived first and was hiding nearby because she knew perfectly well what he was going to say about running away from home again.
That sounded much more like her.
He sat facing the ocean and spoke quietly toward his shadow. "Gengar, check the area. See if anyone's nearby. Cissy especially."
"Gen."
Gengar poked its head out of the darkness at his feet. It had heard the entire conversation with Cissy's father earlier, and after spending so much time around Cissy over the last two weeks, it knew her presence well enough.
Gengar closed its eyes and spread its senses through the surrounding area.
It didn't take long.
There was a faint trace of psychic energy behind a large tree roughly thirty meters from the camp, as if a Psychic-type Pokémon had recently appeared there. Gengar opened one eye and pointed.
Reiji followed its claw.
The tree itself wasn't unusual. Fairchild Island was covered in enormous old growth, and this particular trunk was thick enough that two people together would struggle to wrap their arms around it.
It was also more than wide enough to hide Cissy.
Reiji stood. "Come out. I know you're there."
Every Pokémon eating nearby stopped and looked toward the tree, but nothing happened.
Reiji smiled.
"You're really going to keep hiding? Fine. I'll leave. You can spend the rest of your life wondering where I went."
Still nothing.
"All right, then."
He started packing away the dishes, making enough noise to ensure whoever was behind the tree could hear exactly what he was doing.
"I'm serious. I'll call your dad and tell him where you are, then I'm leaving without you."
Behind the tree, Cissy stared helplessly at Slowking.
"How did he find us?"
"Slow…"
Slowking gave her a look that said this should not be surprising. Hiding thirty meters from a Trainer much stronger than her and hoping he simply wouldn't notice was never an especially brilliant plan.
On the other side, Reiji shouldered his backpack.
"Last chance. Your dad can have Slowking here in no time."
Cissy finally cracked.
"Rai, wait! I…"
She stepped out from behind the tree, looking considerably less confident now that she had been caught. Reiji sighed and walked toward her while Cissy braced herself for a lecture.
Instead, he flicked her forehead.
"Ow!"
She immediately covered the spot. "That hurt!"
"Good. Maybe you'll remember it next time."
Reiji walked straight past her toward the forest.
Cissy blinked, then hurried after him with Slowking. "Rai? Where are you going?"
He kept walking, and for one horrible second she thought he was actually leaving her behind. Cissy rushed forward and wrapped both arms around him from behind.
"Rai, I'm sorry! Don't leave, okay? And please don't call my dad."
Reiji looked over his shoulder, then flicked her forehead again.
"Ow! Stop doing that!"
"I'm going to the center of the island."
Cissy paused. "That's it?"
"That's it."
All the panic vanished from her face. She released him and immediately hooked herself around his arm instead.
Reiji looked down at her. "What?"
"Nothing."
"You're impossible."
By now, the last sunlight had vanished behind the trees, leaving the forest dark and damp. Cissy didn't seem particularly bothered by that anymore.
Reiji switched on a flashlight while Umbreon padded ahead of them, the rings on its body giving off a faint glow in the darkness.
"You eaten yet?" he asked.
Cissy shook her head. "No. I'm starving."
She made sure to sound particularly pitiful.
Reiji remained unmoved. "Then you can stay hungry until we reach the middle of the island."
Cissy stared at him. "Rai!"
"We're in the middle of a wild island at night. I'm not setting up camp again because you decided to sneak out without dinner."
"You're awful."
"You know who else thought you were awful today? Your dad, when he realized you were missing."
Cissy immediately looked away.
"Bleh."
She stuck out her tongue at him.
Reiji glanced toward the darkness beside her and suddenly raised his voice. "Careful. There's a bug right next to you."
Cissy's tongue vanished back into her mouth.
"Where?! Where is it?!"
She jumped onto him so quickly that Reiji barely had time to brace himself. Arms around his shoulders and legs clinging to him, she looked frantically from side to side.
Reiji burst out laughing.
"Found it."
Cissy froze.
"You're the bug. A scaredy bug."
She stared at him in disbelief for a second before she started hitting his shoulder.
"Rai! You jerk! You scared me!"
Their voices and laughter gradually faded into the forest.
Someone else had been listening.
A man slowly surfaced in the shallow water near Reiji's abandoned campsite and wiped a hand across his forehead. For a few seconds earlier, he had genuinely believed he was dead.
When Reiji suddenly shouted for someone to come out, the tracker had assumed he had been discovered. He had almost abandoned the entire job and fled into open water before Reiji could send a Pokémon after him.
Then Reiji kept talking.
You'll never see me again. I'll call your dad.
It took a moment, but the tracker gradually realized the threats weren't aimed at him at all. Reiji was trying to flush out the girl behind the tree.
He let out a long breath. If he had panicked and surfaced earlier, he would have exposed himself for no reason.
The tracker waited until Reiji and Cissy's lights disappeared deep into the forest, then pulled out his communicator.
"Bow, they've met up. Both of them are heading inland. Looks like they're going toward the center of the island."
"The center?" the first mate replied.
A second voice came over the communicator—Riku's brother.
"Why the hell would he go there? That's where both island rulers live."
The second mate laughed. "Maybe we won't have to do anything. The two rulers might tear him apart for us."
"Keep following," the first mate ordered. "When they stop for the night, report back."
"Understood."
The tracker climbed out of the water with considerably less enthusiasm than he had entered it. He changed into dry clothes, covered himself thoroughly with insect repellent, then pulled a dark cloak over his shoulders.
Once he was ready, he released Golbat and fitted a pair of night-vision goggles over his eyes.
"Scout ahead. Quietly."
Golbat disappeared between the trees.
The tracker followed at a careful distance, slipping into the dark forest after Reiji and Cissy.
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
[Check out my Patreon to read 20+ chapters ahead]
[[email protected]/BellAshelia]
[Thanks for your support!]