That way of thinking — Pokémon as tools rather than partners — was the common thread running through most people who made their living through crime.
And it showed in the quality of the Pokémon they used. Most were low-level, hastily caught, and poorly raised. Quantity was the substitute for quality. When Security Officers showed up, you threw out four or five Pokémon to create a diversion, then you ran. Nobody doing that kind of work had time to train their team properly, and nobody in that line of thinking saw the point.
That was exactly why Nova had felt confident walking into Lune Town with only one battle-ready Pokémon.
Whatever a criminal could field on short notice — carelessly caught, never properly trained — it was no match for a Nidoking that had been raised with genuine care and pushed further still by the Cultivation System. The gap wasn't even close.
It was only through a handful of run-ins with criminals that Nova had come to understand how different real, unregulated confrontations were from anything resembling a proper Pokémon battle. There were no referees here. No rules about turn order or fair play. The outcomes weren't always clean, and the winner wasn't always obvious.
The lessons were straightforward, if uncomfortable:
If you had a chance to end things decisively, take it — don't drag it out for the sake of appearances. If you could put pressure on the Trainer directly rather than waiting for them to send out another Pokémon, do that instead. If your opponent had more fighters and stronger ones, forget your pride and get out. And if you were going to fight without rules, stop expecting the other side to hold themselves to any.
Safest led Nova in the opposite direction from where they'd come, weaving through a couple of crumbling blocks until they came to a stop outside what looked like an old wholesale market.
Along the way, Nova had kept up a quiet act — letting small, carefully placed questions paint the picture of a Trainer who was passionate about battling but consistently losing, someone frustrated enough to chase shortcuts. The implication was obvious: he wanted something that would give his Pokémon an edge. As for Nidoking, Nova had let Safest conclude on his own that the Pokémon's size was the result of performance-enhancing compounds. Safest had no way to scan Pokémon data the way Nova could. Whatever explanation Nova offered, Safest had no choice but to accept it.
A Trainer with that kind of obsession would naturally want to know who the strongest battlers in Lune Town were, so Nova had asked.
Safest had rattled off several names. One of them was the head of security at the casino — the man Nova had briefly noticed earlier. Apparently, a sore loser had caused a scene at the tables, and the head guard had settled it by having his Hariyama end the argument in one move.
Nova had quietly scanned the Hariyama during their visit.
Level 50. Mediocre potential. No standout traits.
By the standards of the Norlandia Alliance, that was enough to push around rookie officers, but it wouldn't hold up against anyone with real experience. Against Nidoking, even accounting for the level difference, it would be a short fight.
And yet Safest listed this man among the top three fighters in Lune Town.
Nova turned the thought over for a moment. If the strongest people here were at that level, why hadn't the Security Office simply moved in and cleaned the place out?
Safest caught the look on his face and smiled — the smile of someone who thought they knew something worth knowing.
"Let me ask you something," Safest said. "What do you think keeps Lune Town running?"
"The people here?" Nova offered. "The criminals?"
Safest shook his head slowly, looking almost pleased. "Wrong. The foundation isn't us. It's the customers. People who want things they can't get anywhere else."
He ticked the points off on his fingers. "Someone wants a drug that pushes their Pokémon past its limits — Lune Town supplies it. Someone wants to eat Pokémon — Lune Town has a restaurant for that. Someone wants other services — Lune Town provides those too. Everything here exists because someone out there wants it. We just meet the demand."
"That still doesn't explain why Security Officers don't raid the place."
"They could." Safest shrugged. "But word travels fast. By the time they showed up, most of us would already be out in the desert. How many could they actually catch? And even if they cleared everyone out and levelled the town completely — within a month, somewhere else would fill the gap." He raised one finger and wagged it. "Officers can shut down Lune Town. They can't shut down what people want."
He let that sit for a moment, then continued. "Think about it from a Norlandia Alliance administrator's point of view. Would you rather tolerate one Lune Town sitting out in the middle of the Tamar Desert, hard to reach and isolated from everything — or deal with the same activity spreading quietly through every residential city in the region?"
Nova was quiet. He understood.
It was a matter of priorities. Organised crime operating inside populated cities was a direct threat to ordinary people and demanded immediate attention. Lune Town, tucked deep inside an Uninhabited Area and requiring a gruelling desert crossing just to reach, was contained by geography alone. The Security Office knew where it was. They could watch it. That was, in a cold and pragmatic sense, preferable to driving it underground and losing track of it entirely.
They had arrived at the market entrance while they talked.
According to Safest, this building served as Original Team's local base of operations in Lune Town. From the outside it looked worse than anything else in the area — a large sign reduced to a few faded strokes, every window broken, rubbish piled in the corners carrying a faint, unpleasant smell. Whoever occupied the place had made no effort to maintain it.
But the heavy roller shutter at the entrance was pulled all the way down and secured tightly. Whatever was being handled inside warranted that much precaution. Even in a place like Lune Town, with as few rules as it had, certain things still needed to stay out of sight.
Safest rapped his knuckles on the shutter.
There was a pause, then a voice from inside — irritated, already cursing before the words were even fully formed.
Not wanting to cause offence to Original Team's people, Safest kept his tone easy. "It's me — Safest. I've got someone here who's interested in buying."
At the mention of a buyer, the cursing stopped, though the tone stayed unfriendly. "Slide the money under the shutter. Six thousand per dose. Don't ask for a discount unless you want me to come out there and make you regret it."
Safest bowed his head slightly in the direction of the shutter, then turned to Nova. "There you have it. How many are you buying?"
Nova kept his expression blank. "I'm not here to buy anything."
Safest stared at him.
The look on his face cycled through confusion, disbelief, and then something approaching genuine offence. He had dragged this young man across half of Lune Town. He had walked him through the casino, the restaurant, and three other establishments. He had brought him all the way here, to Original Team's doorstep. And now he was saying he didn't want to buy anything?
His hand drifted toward his Poké Ball.
Nova turned back to the shutter and spoke clearly through the gap.
"I'm not a customer. I'm the chemist Taylor brought in. Tell him to come and meet me."
A short silence followed.
Then Safest slowly lowered his hand from his Poké Ball and stared at the back of Nova's head with an expression that suggested he was quietly reconsidering several of his life choices.
A teenager. A chemist. Working for Original Team.
He wasn't sure what surprised him more — that it was apparently true, or that he hadn't seen it coming.