Day 7 of the trip to Kanto. Overcast.
Today, Reiji boarded a ship again. Ever since setting out for Kanto, he'd realised he spent most of his time at sea, and this leg alone would take a full week.
The distance was the main problem. They were sailing out from Cinnabar Island, passing the Seafoam Islands and Sunnytown, reaching the southeast edge of the Kanto mainland, then continuing north. They had to go all the way up to Kanto's northern end before they could finally reach Lavender Town.
In other words, they were tracing roughly a third of Kanto's coastline just to get there.
It wasn't an easy trip. If you counted the return journey too, it could take a month, with half of that spent on a ship.
Still, there were perks. Blaine brought two maids this time—one to look after Amber, and one to handle all the daily chores—so they basically just had to eat, relax, and enjoy themselves.
The cruise ship's captain was also an old friend of Blaine's. They were given the best top-floor sea-view rooms, plus a private training space, so even on the ocean, they could keep training their Pokémon.
Reiji benefited from all of it. He got a sea-view room too, and the ship's "top-tier" service that came with Blaine's name. At the very least, he didn't have to worry about food.
He hadn't even restocked his travel supplies yet, so riding along with Blaine worked out perfectly. He could eat well all the way to Lavender Town.
Before they departed, Blaine took Reiji's advice and gave Amber a simple disguise. First, they cut her hair into a neat shoulder-length style.
Then they added a cute sunhat and swapped her clothes for fitted outfits and proper shoes. Like that, she was much harder to recognise at a glance.
As for the three starter Pokémon with the obvious clone markings—ones Reiji hadn't dared to release—Blaine took them to the Cinnabar Lab and had a minor procedure done.
He removed the pigmentation patterns and restored their colouring with their original tones, basically "re-dyeing" them properly from the source. After that, they looked normal enough that Reiji could release them without drawing attention.
Watching it happen, Reiji had to admit Blaine knew what he was doing. He'd solved the problem at the root instead of covering it up.
If Reiji had handled it himself, he would've used the clumsy method—dye them and hope it held. But the moment they shed, the markings would come back. It was never going to last.
Amber also made her first friend at the lab: an Eevee. They played together, clicked immediately, and before long, Blaine simply told Amber to keep it with her.
It was "just an Eevee," and Blaine had plenty. If Amber liked something, he could get it for her.
Whether that spoiled her was a separate question. Blaine wasn't thinking about that. He only wanted to make up for the years he'd lost with her—he wanted to hand those years back, one day at a time.
Reiji didn't comment. He understood an old man's regret, and he couldn't be bothered policing how Blaine chose to cope with it.
After they boarded, Reiji didn't slow down on training. He was in Blaine's private training area now. Amber was there too, riding Arcanine around like it was her personal mount, hugging a fluffy Eevee to her chest, while a maid waited outside the door.
"Rai-nii," Amber said suddenly, "there's something in your shadow. I can tell it's bored."
"What?" Reiji was still jogging. He'd just grabbed water, and her words nearly made him choke.
"Rai-nii, it really is bored," Amber insisted, tilting her head. "Can you let it out so it can play with us?"
Reiji went still for half a beat. Darkrai had been hiding in his shadow this whole time, and Amber had noticed.
"Darkrai… she can sense you?" Reiji asked under his breath.
"I don't know," Darkrai replied, voice tight. "If I had to guess, it's connected to Ho-Oh."
Reiji's throat went dry as another thought hit him. Ho-Oh giving Amber something strange was one possibility. The other was worse.
Dr. Fuji's work revolved around Mew's genes. If that man had been obsessed enough to clone Amber in the first place, who was to say he hadn't spliced something into her as well?
The idea alone made Reiji's skin prickle.
"Rai-nii?" Amber looked up at him. He'd gone quiet, but she didn't know he was talking to Darkrai.
Reiji forced a smile and patted her head. "Amber, this is my secret. Don't tell anyone, alright? Not even Grandpa Blaine. If people find out, I'll get into serious trouble."
"Okay…" Amber crouched down anyway, pointed at the spot where Darkrai hid, and poked at the shadow like she was testing whether it would move.
Darkrai went rigid. It had been sensed before—by that Slowking. But being picked up by a human child was a first.
Reiji's mouth twitched. "It's fine. It has me. It's not bored."
He glanced at Arcanine next. That dog could easily "report" something to Blaine later, and that was the last thing he needed.
Arcanine barked twice and wagged its tail, clearly offended by being stared at.
Reiji couldn't understand a single word of it, and he doubted Blaine could either.
"Amber, it's training with me," Reiji said, steering her away. "I need to keep running too. Why don't you take Arcanine outside and go find Grandpa Blaine? I'll come play with you after I'm done."
"Okay, Rai-nii. Come on, big dog." Amber grabbed Arcanine's ears and trotted out. The maid followed right behind.
Once Amber left, Reiji kept jogging and started thinking ahead. Lavender Town wasn't just "a town." They were going to visit Agatha's dojo.
That woman had spent her whole life around Ghost-types. If Darkrai stayed in Reiji's shadow, Agatha—or one of her Pokémon—might spot it instantly. He'd need Darkrai to keep distance, or hide in a Poké Ball.
Even that might not be safe. Darkrai was simply hard to conceal.
"Darkrai," Reiji said quietly, "Lavender Town has a trainer who's dangerous. You might run into something like that Slowking again. When we get there, you may need to back off for a while."
"I understand," Darkrai answered at once. It never underestimated veteran trainers. If anything, the older they were, the less simple they tended to be.
"That old woman might be Champion level," Reiji added. "She specialises in Ghost-types, and she has a very strong Gengar."
"A greedy ghost? A glutton? A troublemaker? Or the cheerful kind?" Darkrai asked dryly. Every Gengar it knew was basically Reiji's Gengar with a different face.
Reiji's eyelid twitched. "I don't know. I've never met her."
His own Gengar was greedy and restless enough that he rarely released it during the day. Keeping it in the Poké Ball was safer for everyone.
"Fine," Darkrai said. "I'll stay far away."
"Good." Reiji exhaled. "If that old woman catches you, we're in trouble. We don't have the strength to take risks right now."
He'd learned that lesson the hard way. He'd nearly been exposed once because of that Slowking. Since then, he'd been much more careful.
If Blaine hadn't looked genuinely nostalgic when he showed those photos—if Reiji hadn't seen the pictures of Amber riding Arcanine—he would never have admitted anything to Blaine at all.
Two of the photos had been covered at the time. One showed Amber on Arcanine. The other showed Blaine holding her.
The girl in the pictures looked exactly like Amber, smiling brightly, and Blaine looked just as happy. Dr. Fuji had clearly used Amber's original genes, and if he'd been reckless enough to add Mew's genes on top of that…
And Ho-Oh could've done something too.
Amber's behaviour earlier pointed to one clear trait: she could read emotions—human and Pokémon alike. Happy, sad, bored… she noticed them all.
If that was true, then lies would be easy to catch. When someone's words didn't match what they were feeling, Amber would notice the mismatch. She was basically a walking lie detector.
Luckily, Reiji hadn't lied to her since they met. Amber was young, but she understood far more than most adults gave children credit for.
He hadn't even avoided talking about Team Rocket in front of her. He wanted her to understand they weren't harmless—that they could take her away for research.
And Amber had listened seriously. That alone told him she wasn't a clueless child.
So what kind of "special ability" was this?
Reiji ran through the ones he knew from stories and old records.
Aura—an ability to sense living things, because everything had aura. It was close to Observation Haki from that pirate series.
The "Chosen One" power—a gift that let people communicate with Pokémon and calm Legendary Pokémon.
The Viridian Forest gift—a blessing that appeared from time to time, letting someone heal and soothe Pokémon.
Psychic abilities—the straightforward kind, from small tricks to true telepathy.
And the "dragon" gift—people with it bonded easily with Dragon-types, could communicate with them, and sometimes even sensed fragments of their memories. Iris had shown signs of something like that.
Compared to those, reading emotions didn't sound like a world-ending power.
Then again, many of those abilities also included emotion sensing as a side effect. Whether this was good or bad for Amber… Reiji didn't want to decide. Blaine could worry about it.
He stopped thinking about it and kept training. Poliwhirl and the others were also drilling new moves, and that kind of progress took time—long, grinding time.
When his morning workout ended, he took a quick shower and scrubbed the sweat off. A maid came to tell him lunch was ready, then guided him to the deck.
Blaine waved him over. Reiji sat down and started eating.
"Kid," Blaine said, watching him, "is this what your days look like all the time?"
"More or less," Reiji replied. "I don't have your resources. If I want something, I have to work for it."
He didn't mention that the hot springs had been nice. The last soak had eased the fatigue in his body, and the Pokémon had looked the same—lighter, calmer, less stiff.
Blaine snorted, not sure whether to believe him or not.
Reiji decided to bring up the real issue. "Blaine, I think Amber can sense people's emotions. Pokémon too. Does that count as a special ability, like the psychics?"
Blaine's chopsticks paused. He looked over at Amber, who was sharing sweets with Eevee and hadn't been listening at all.
"That's new," Blaine said slowly.
"Who knows where it came from?" Reiji said, shrugging. "Dr. Fuji worked with Mew's genes. Ho-Oh was involved in bringing her back. If a mad scientist and a Legendary Pokémon left something behind in her, that wouldn't exactly shock me."
"I'll keep an eye on it," Blaine said after a moment. "I'll talk to Amber later."
"Good," Reiji said, relieved to hand the headache off. "I'm going back to training after this."
"Fine," Blaine said. "But your Rhydon is still too rough. It even lost a tooth. Go find my Rhydon—he'll be on this ship all week. I've already told him to take yours in hand."
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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