With an easy first win, and Willow claiming a point of her own, First High's team left Heavenly Dragon Academy in high spirits.
The next match was set for two days later, leaving plenty of time to rest. David even did the cooking himself, inviting the whole School Team to a picnic in the mountains behind his family's Gym. His cooking skills, as always, were beyond words, and the meal nearly left everyone speechless with delight.
But while David and his team enjoyed their preliminary round and celebrated their early success, something far less pleasant was unfolding in Magic City.
"Still no sign of these rats?"
On the outskirts of Magic City, near the edge of the wilderness, in an area normally kept empty for safety, a group of figures in black uniforms suddenly appeared.
Had David been there, he would likely have recognized the emblem stitched onto their uniforms at once. The seven-star pattern, wrapped in the shadow of a coiling dragon, had been designed by his late great-grandfather. It was the symbol of the Cloudspire Alliance's Special Security Bureau.
Much like Sakura's Internal Affairs Investigation Department or the White Eagle's Central Investigation Bureau, this force was tasked with handling threats to Cloudspire's security. Admission standards were brutally strict, and the Bureau's influence within the Alliance ran deep.
Since the Bureau had been founded by his own elder, the Moore family still held real weight within it to this day. David had once wondered whether Dominic came from this same organization, since Dominic's sense of "aura" felt strikingly similar to that of several Special Security Bureau elders he remembered meeting.
The Bureau only involved itself in matters that threatened the Cloudspire Alliance at its core. Without a direct order from the highest levels of the Alliance, its agents rarely acted at all — which meant that whatever was happening here was clearly no small matter.
"Commander, we picked up traces of their movement in Sector 16, but we lost them once they entered the wilderness."
"In terrain like this, pinning down their exact position is nearly impossible. All we can confirm is that they were active here roughly five hours ago."
One of the agents spoke up as soon as the leader finished.
"Team Leader is right. Based on their route, their final target has to be somewhere inside Magic City."
"Something in the city must be drawing them in," another added quickly.
"Stay on their trail. We cannot lose them. If these lunatics cause chaos inside Magic City, it'll be a disaster."
"Notify the East Sea Legion stationed in Magic City to raise their alert level, and inform Gym Leader Alice of the Mind Nurturing Gym."
"Also, tell Alliance Headquarters to send every Special Action Team from the Southeast region. We can't afford to take any of this lightly."
"If we run into them and can't take them alive, eliminate them where they stand. There's only one rule: not a single rat gets past us."
As he said this, the man everyone called Commander clenched his jaw, a flicker of bloodlust crossing his face.
"Yes, sir!"
"Yes, sir!"
The team leaders, orders in hand, scattered in different directions with their subordinates, leaving only a handful of people behind.
"Commander, is this truly necessary? Calling in every team from the entire Southeast region hasn't happened in at least ten years. Will Headquarters really approve—"
Once most of the crowd had left, a bespectacled man, who looked more like a research analyst than a field agent, finally spoke.
Before he could finish, the Commander cut him off with a wave of his hand.
"Don't underestimate them. Even a group of rats from the gutter, if they've truly gotten hold of the God of Destruction's power, could bring about disaster if we don't handle this properly."
"Send word. Report the full situation to Alliance Headquarters, exactly as it happened."
The Commander's mind flashed back to what he'd witnessed a day and a half earlier. One of the cultists, already surrounded and cornered, had infused himself and his Pokémon with a strange energy, exactly as the intelligence had described, unleashing power far beyond anything natural — and then, with a deafening blast, he had torn himself apart.
The force of that explosion had been enormous. Had the agents on the hunt not all been Superior-ranked, and had a local branch handled it instead, there would certainly have been casualties.
Not only did it resemble the modified corps documented in Sakura's files within the Alliance's own database, but the residual energy left behind matched exactly.
The dark power left by these rats — cultists of The End Church — had scarred the land for dozens of meters around the blast site after the explosion. The soil's vitality had been utterly drained, and the leftover corruption was actively resisting the land's recovery. Left alone, it would likely take decades to heal.
How could a sight like that not be taken seriously? And this had only been cannon fodder, someone freshly promoted into the Superior rank. If a single low-ranking cultist could cause that much devastation, The End Church had clearly grown into a genuine threat. If it wasn't crushed hard and fast, there was no telling what damage it might do across Cloudspire this time.
"How did these bastards even get in? The border patrols—"
The Commander stopped himself there. Blaming the border guards wouldn't help; they had already done everything they could.
The Pokémon world's version of Blue Star was easily ten, even a hundred times larger than it had been before the world changed. A land that vast could never be fully settled or watched by humans. And that was without even accounting for the Pokémon themselves — outside a small share of human cities, towns, and villages, the overwhelming majority of Blue Star belonged to wild Pokémon.
Cloudspire's border legions, spread thin across key positions, were already stretched to their limit holding back large-scale incursions from rival Alliances and stampedes launched by wild Pokémon hordes.
A group like The End Church, splitting into small cells with every member at least Superior rank and each cell led by an Advanced-ranked Trainer, could slip through the blockades into Cloudspire territory without much trouble.
In the past, dealing with these criminal infiltrations had mostly come down to Superior-ranked agents working with local forces to surround and suppress them. But these End Church cultists were something else entirely. Setting aside whatever harm their Pokémon might cause, just the destructive power — tentatively named — that each cultist carried on their own person was enough to unsettle anyone.
They were walking bombs, and the thought alone was enough to make one's skin crawl. If even one of them made it into a crowded city, the result would be catastrophic.
"I hope Headquarters decides quickly. But keep an eye on those Sakura people too."
A cold glint passed through the Commander's eyes at the thought. The people of Sakura were no better in his book.
The moment traces of The End Church's activity had surfaced within the Cloudspire Alliance, Sakura had rushed to propose sending an exchange delegation. And the instant that delegation arrived, these End Church rats had suddenly sprung into action. Something about the timing didn't sit right with him.
What's more, the incident once known as the "Disaster of Destruction" had originally been a scheme cooked up by the Sakura people. Now that cultists were stealing the power of destruction all over again, it was hard to believe Sakura had nothing to do with it.
If not for the diplomatic fallout it would cause, and the lack of solid proof, he would have already had every last one of them arrested. He held no goodwill toward them; his own family had lost more than one ancestor during the original Disaster of Destruction.
"Hmph. For now, just keep them under quiet watch. If we want to push further, we'll need real evidence first."
...And so, while the cultists of The End Church played their game of cat and mouse with the Cloudspire Alliance's Special Security Bureau just outside Magic City, other, quieter movements were already stirring within the city itself.