The moment Nova arrived back in Harmony City, he went straight to the Pokémon Center to get the Onix healed up. The Rock Snake Pokémon had taken a severe beating from Nidoking, and it needed proper care before Nova could rely on it again.
Taylor's true strength was still a mystery to him. The only thing Nova knew for certain was that the man's ace Pokémon was an Arbok with a boosted Acid move — likely built around a strong set of moves and, almost certainly, the Intimidate ability. That Arbok was well above level sixty. Even a direct clash with Nova's Nidoking would be a gamble with no sure outcome.
And if Taylor had three or four more Pokémon of similar strength waiting in reserve, Nova would stand no chance at all.
But clean, rule-based battles only happened inside official Pokémon Gyms and stadiums. Before Nova had set out alone for Lune Town, he had known nothing about Taylor. The enemy had all the information, while Nova had none. Taylor held every advantage — when to strike, where to strike, and how to do it all depended entirely on his mood.
That was why Nova had taken the risk of stirring up trouble in Lune Town in the first place.
Unless he put himself in the role of the attacker and struck directly at Taylor's weak points, he would stay on the back foot forever.
His original plan had been straightforward: raid Taylor's hideout in Lune Town, then draw him out into the Tamar Desert for a chase while collecting as much criminal evidence against Taylor and the organization backing him as possible. If things went badly and victory was out of reach, he would use himself as bait, fall back to Harmony City at full speed, and let the Security Officers take over from there.
But things had not gone according to plan.
Nova had not expected Taylor to be away from Lune Town when he arrived. That single change shifted everything.
After dismantling the Original Team's base in Lune Town and obtaining both Taylor's whereabouts and a portion of his intel, Nova had quietly slipped out of the spotlight before Taylor could return from Forest City. Now it was Taylor who stood exposed, and Nova who moved in the shadows.
Working in the open had its strengths — using the momentum of the Security Officers and the Norlandia Alliance, going through proper channels and official means.
Working in the shadows had its strengths too — disguise, surprise, and hitting from where no one expected.
Switching between the two was possible, but doing so carelessly would lower his chances of successfully taking down Taylor.
There was another concern. Security Officers never moved quietly. The operation to hunt poachers on Purple Lychee Mountain was proof of that — over a dozen Officers and dozens of Trainers had swept through the Goldenlight City area all at once. If the Officers launched a large-scale operation in Forest City now, Taylor would likely sense it coming, abandon his plans, and disappear into the Uninhabited Area of the desert at his back. After that, tracking him down again would be a long and frustrating task.
Everything would return to the same old pattern — enemy hidden, Nova exposed.
So Nova decided to scout Forest City first. If he could pin down Taylor's exact movements, he would have real options — whether to act openly or strike from the shadows.
Since Taylor's full battle strength was still unknown, making sure his own team was in top condition was essential. That meant getting the lord Onix back to full health.
The Onix had spent years ruling the desert on its own and was still wild and untamed. It had only just been caught, and there was every chance it might ignore a Trainer's commands in battle. Still, it was a lord-class Pokémon with a self-earned level of forty-six, and its base stats were solid. Even if it refused to follow direct orders, sending it out as a shield or a disruptor would serve a purpose.
After paying the treatment fee at the Pokémon Center's reception desk, Nova caught the bus back to his rented flat.
Aresdra had already returned to her classes at the Specialized Vocational School and was staying in the school dormitory, so the apartment was quiet. Just Nova, and one egg.
A small, pale-green Pokémon egg with soft kitten-paw patterns sat in the incubator on the shelf. It had been there for a week. Before leaving for Lune Town, Nova had picked up several potted plants and arranged them around the living room, hoping the touch of greenery would make the space feel more like nature — a small comfort for the Pokémon still growing inside the shell.
A regular Pokémon egg takes around thirty-one days to hatch. Nova's egg, however, had been flagged by the system with a golden talent rating. Eggs like that often took a little longer than usual.
After all, if it took three years to bring Nezha into the world, a talented little cat being a few extra days late was perfectly understandable.
Looking at the softly glowing egg nestled among the potted plants, gently pulsing with warmth, Nova felt more focused than ever. He had to wrap up the Taylor situation quickly — get in, finish the job, and make it back before that egg cracked open.
He hugged the incubator, grinned to himself for a good half an hour, and then headed out the door, fully recharged and ready to move.
Forest City sat within the Norlandia Alliance as one of its quieter, more forgettable towns — even compared to Harmony City.
The northern Tamar Desert sent sandstorms rolling through the area throughout the year, coating every tree, every stretch of lawn, and every building in a dull layer of dust and gray. Out of three hundred and sixty-five days, close to half were sandstorm days. It had earned a reputation as the least livable city in the entire Norlandia Alliance, and few argued otherwise.
If the city had a single point of pride, it was the dense, thriving grove of Chinese parasol trees at its very center — the forest from which the city took its name.
In a way, Forest City had been built around that forest, not the other way around.
In his previous life, Nova had never come across anything like it. Who designs a city so that the forest sits at the heart and all the buildings are pushed to the edges?
Only in the Pokémon world, he thought.
According to local legend, the forest held a mysterious energy that kept the Tamar Desert's raging sandstorms from swallowing Forest City whole.
In Nova's long experience playing RPGs, he had learned one simple rule: every legend turned out to be true. If he were the protagonist — which, by all signs, he was — a short walk into that forest would probably uncover the source of the legend. It might even lead to an encounter with a legendary Pokémon.
But this trip was not about sightseeing. He had a job to do.
After taking a moment to look at the lush green canopy in the distance, Nova flagged down a cab and headed for the Pokémon Center.
Forest City was small enough that it did not have an officially League-certified Gym. The duties that a Gym would normally handle were spread across other facilities around town.
Bounty listings and Trainer payouts for Professional Trainers, for example, were managed from the third floor of the Pokémon Center.
A small city meant a small population, which meant fewer incidents that needed a Professional Trainer's attention. With fewer bounties available, a Trainer could barely cover the cost of Pokémon food and medical supplies, let alone support themselves. So even fewer Trainers chose to stay long-term. It was a quiet, self-reinforcing cycle that kept the town just as it was.
For Nova, that was actually useful.
He had expected that tracking down a lead on Taylor in a city this size might be next to impossible — like looking for a single coin on a sandy beach. So he had come to the Pokémon Center first, hoping to glance over the bounty board and see if anything jumped out.
With so few active bounties posted, one listing in particular stood out immediately — and it looked like it might be exactly the thread he needed to pull.