The café sat along one of Alto Mare's wider canals, the kind of place where the sound of water was always present no matter where you sat. Ash leaned back in his chair and looked at James across the table.
"Good intelligence. Detailed too." He set the report down. "Where did you get it? This isn't the kind of thing that's publicly available."
James opened his mouth with a proud smile already forming.
"Obviously, we're not exactly ordinary people," he started.
"If Meowth hadn't overheard those two women you'd have nothing," Jessie cut in flatly from beside him, not even looking up.
James closed his mouth. The smile stayed but lost some of its structural integrity.
...
Ash was only half listening. His eyes had settled on Jessie with a slight shift in focus that the others wouldn't have caught. The first time he'd met her she'd been completely sealed, Chakra locked down tight. Now she wasn't.
"So it's what I'm thinking," he said simply.
James went a little red. "...Yeah."
It made sense when you thought about it. The two of them had been traveling together for years, running from Team Rocket, running from James's family, running toward something neither of them had named for a long time. Eventually you stopped running from the obvious.
"You could've done worse," Ash said, without any particular weight to it.
Jessie, for once, said nothing. Just looked at her drink.
...
"The two women," Ash said, steering back to the matter at hand. "Walk me through it again."
James nodded, composing himself. They'd been passing through Alto Mare with no particular agenda, planning to catch a boat back to Kanto, when Meowth had spotted two women behaving suspiciously near the port. Something in their body language had set him off.
Since they were just a Meowth to the women's eyes, no threat worth watching, they'd let him wander close. He'd caught enough of the conversation to understand what they were after, then reported back to James and Jessie immediately. That was when they'd sent word to Ash.
"So they're looking for Latios and Latias," Ash said.
"That's what Meowth heard. They were trying to track them down specifically."
Ash turned it over quietly. Latios and Latias weren't common knowledge. The pair rumored to guard Alto Mare were operating at a level that put them firmly in Legendary tier, likely inheritors of the same power as the Latios from the old legend. Finding them wouldn't be easy for anyone who didn't already know the island.
Which meant these two women had done their research.
"We lost their trail before we could get a location," James admitted. "By the time we followed up it was already cold."
"Doesn't matter. If their target is here, they're still here." Ash stood, dropping a few Pokédollars on the table. "Sabrina and Jessie can enjoy the city. Tonight you, me, and Meowth are going for a walk."
...
Sabrina paused on her way out and rattled the ice in her milk tea once in Ash's direction. Her version of "don't be long."
Ash didn't respond but noted it.
...
The canal streets of Alto Mare were genuinely something in the evening. Stone bridges, gondolas drifting past, lantern light catching on the water. James had clearly been here long enough to know his way around and led them through a route he and Jessie had already mapped out across their earlier scouting.
"By the way," Ash said as they walked, "your fiancée situation. That sorted out?"
"The engagement's void," James said, and the sheer relief in his voice was almost funny. "I contacted my father before coming here. It's done." He exhaled. "Jessebelle and I are finished. Legally, officially, completely finished."
"Good."
"I should've done it years ago honestly."
Ash didn't disagree.
...
"These are from the route map you sent us," James continued, reaching into his coat and producing a folded inventory sheet.
"We found fifteen of the evolution stones you were looking for out of the full list. The rest of what we turned up was miscellaneous items, but there were a lot of them. I've already shipped everything to Fantasy Island with full concealment. Should arrive within the week."
Ash took the sheet and scanned it. His Aura was already spreading outward through the canal network around them, passive and quiet, reading the city.
Somewhere in Alto Mare, two people were looking for a pair of Legendary Pokémon.
He'd find them first.