Thunder rolled across the night sky, one blast following another as lightning tore through the clouds. For an instant, the forest was lit almost as brightly as day, and the flash caught the masked man's face twisted into a greedy grin.
"You're out of road!" he shouted through the storm. "Arbok, go!"
Arbok surged across the mud, its heavy body throwing dirty water in every direction. Venom gleamed along its fangs as it lunged at Shingo, but he held his ground and immediately sent one of his own Pokémon forward to meet it.
Arbok was only quasi–Elite Four tier. Under normal circumstances, Shingo would never have considered it a serious threat, and even with most of his team injured, he could still handle one opponent at that level.
The problem was that Arbok was not alone.
"What are you standing there for?" the masked man snapped at Tai. "Get over here and help!"
"All right, all right."
Tai sounded almost distracted as he reached for two Poké Balls. Victreebel and Gyarados appeared in the rain, forcing Shingo to send out two more injured Pokémon before the pair could join Arbok and overwhelm him.
The fight spread across the cliffside almost immediately. Pokémon collided between sheets of rain while wind tore through the trees, and Shingo was forced to divide what remained of his battered team among three separate opponents.
Tai, however, was paying more attention to his partner than to the battle.
The masked man never noticed the dark mass creeping up behind him.
By the time he realized something was wrong, a black, viscous arm had already punched through his chest.
His laughter stopped.
Blood ran down Muk's limb and disappeared into the rain as the man stared at the wound in disbelief. Slowly, painfully, he turned toward Tai, unable to understand why the Trainer he had considered an accomplice had just attacked him.
Tai met his stare without the slightest trace of guilt.
"Partners?" he said with a quiet laugh. "Don't flatter yourself."
The reason was actually simple.
Tai already possessed the Crimson Streak training methods. Reiji had given them to him long ago, and Tai had even made his own copy; he simply had not gotten around to raising a Scizor capable of using them.
That meant Shingo's possession of the same legacy could hardly be a coincidence.
Whatever the exact connection was, Shingo was clearly tied to Reiji somehow. Tai might have been willing to follow the chase for his own reasons, but helping an outsider murder someone connected to his boss was another matter entirely.
The masked man saw the Elite Four-tier Muk beside Tai and finally understood.
"You bastard... You betrayed Team Rocket!"
His hand flew to another Poké Ball.
Weezing appeared beside him.
If he was going down, he had no intention of going alone.
"Weezing!" he screamed. "Explosion! Take everything with you!"
Tai's expression changed instantly.
"Gyarados! Victreebel! Get Shingo out of there!"
A blinding white light swallowed the cliffside before anyone could do much more.
Muk reacted first, tearing open the soaked ground beneath Tai and dragging him into the hollow as the blast erupted above. The earth buckled under the shockwave, trees snapped or were ripped from their roots, and the rain itself seemed to vanish for a heartbeat beneath the force of the explosion.
Shingo had even less time.
Victreebel's Vine Whip wrapped around his waist and yanked him over the edge of the cliff just before the blast reached them. Gyarados threw itself after him, followed by the other Pokémon that had been fighting nearby, choosing the drop over taking an Elite Four-tier Weezing's Explosion head-on.
They did not fall far.
Victreebel anchored a second vine around a spur of rock while keeping Shingo suspended below the ledge. Gyarados clamped its jaws into the cliff with Crunch and drove its Iron Tail into a crack for additional support, while the other Pokémon dug claws, teeth, or limbs into anything solid enough to hold them.
Then the shockwave reached the cliff.
Stone split beneath them. Chunks of rock tore loose overhead and crashed past as the entire face of the cliff shook, while thunder and the roar of the explosion blurred together until it was impossible to tell one from the other.
A lightning strike ignited part of the forest farther inland, only for the downpour to smother the flames almost immediately.
For several long moments, everyone below the cliff could do nothing except hold on.
Then the worst of the shaking finally passed.
A voice came from above.
"You dead down there? If not, start climbing! This cliff isn't going to stay up much longer!"
Gyarados answered with an irritated roar.
Climbing was easier said than done for something its size.
Victreebel solved the problem. It hauled itself up first with its vines, found stable footing near Tai, then lowered the vines again and helped pull Shingo and the other Pokémon up one by one.
Nobody had time to celebrate.
The moment the last Pokémon reached the top, cracks began spreading through the ground beneath them.
Tai and Shingo recalled their teams immediately, but the section of cliff they were standing on was already separating from the forest. The gap widened too quickly for either man to simply run across.
Tai threw Victreebel's Poké Ball toward solid ground.
The ball opened beyond the widening crack, and Victreebel appeared safely among the trees. Its vines shot back across the gap and wrapped around both Trainers just as the cliff gave way beneath them.
Victreebel pulled.
Tai and Shingo were dragged across the collapsing edge and hit solid ground only seconds before the entire section of cliff crashed into the darkness below.
For a while, neither man said anything.
Tai lay on his back breathing hard, rain running down his mask and mixing with sweat. Shingo was in no better condition; his legs still felt weak after being chased for so long, and surviving an Explosion followed by a collapsing cliff had done nothing to improve matters.
Once he could breathe normally again, Shingo pushed himself upright.
"Thanks."
He still had no idea what was happening. Tai had spent most of the day hunting him alongside the masked man, only to kill his own partner and then save Shingo from the explosion.
Tai's mask concealed his face, and its built-in voice changer left his words rough and unfamiliar. There was no chance Shingo could recognize him from their brief encounters during the tournament.
"You don't want to know why I saved you?" Tai asked.
"Of course I do."
"Then follow me."
Tai turned toward the dark forest.
"If you've got the nerve, you'll get your answer."
Shingo watched him disappear between the trees and hesitated.
Following an unidentified Trainer who had been trying to corner him less than an hour earlier was obviously a terrible idea. On the other hand, if Tai had wanted him dead, he could have simply let Weezing's Explosion finish the job instead of betraying his own partner to save him.
And Shingo badly wanted to know why.
After a moment, curiosity won.
"You really are a strange bastard."
He followed Tai into the forest.
Behind them, almost nothing remained of the masked man.
The Explosion from an Elite Four-tier Weezing had torn the area apart, leaving a massive crater where much of the battlefield had been. The Trainer himself had been caught near the center and was simply gone.
Weezing, however, had survived its own attack and lay unconscious inside the crater.
Tai found it before they left.
That improved his mood considerably.
He captured the unconscious Weezing and pocketed the Poké Ball. Even if he had spent the entire day chasing Shingo for nothing, an Elite Four-tier Weezing was hardly worthless. Its body and toxic materials could eventually be useful for strengthening Gengar.
As for his dead colleague, Tai did not particularly care.
He had not started the hunt, and there was no reason to volunteer the truth to Team Rocket. He could file a report saying the local gang handler had disappeared while pursuing a recruitment target, and the organization would eventually send someone else to replace him.
Problem solved.
...
At almost the same time, another pursuit was unfolding near Mandarin Island North.
Keith was running along the coast with a girl close beside him, rain streaming down both of them while the sea hammered against the shore.
He still had enough sense not to lead their pursuers directly to the villa. Whoever was chasing them could not be allowed anywhere near it, and Keith knew exactly how badly that mistake would end for him.
Instead, he pulled out his phone and called Naoki.
Help arrived quickly.
Before long, the waters off Mandarin Island North erupted into an Elite Four-tier battle. Attacks flashed across the rain-darkened sea while waves crashed against the coast, and Naoki methodically tore through the black-clad pursuers who had been hunting Keith and the girl.
By the time the fighting ended, none of them were left to continue the chase.
Only then did Keith allow himself to relax.
He brought the girl back to Naoki's villa, and the moment the door closed behind them, the warmth and familiar surroundings finally drove home how close the night had come to ending very differently.
For the first time since the pursuit began, they could breathe.
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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