The laugh coming from the other end of the phone was not the dignified chuckle of a respected senior Trainer. It was the laugh of someone who had spent a long time figuring out exactly how much he could get away with.
"Simple," Mort said. "You go to the Pokemon Prison and tell them the Purrloin got away from you by accident. That is it."
Nova stared at nothing in particular. "Will that actually work? We submitted guarantees when we borrowed it. If we genuinely lose their Pokemon, will they not come after us for it?"
"That is why I say you are still too straight-laced, kid. Back when I was your age, I had already found a dozen ways to work around the Alliance's systems. How do you think I funded a full team from scratch?"
He did not wait for an answer.
"Think about it. Besides the guarantee and the credit endorsement, what else did we hand over when we borrowed the Purrloin?"
"A deposit," Nova said. "Ten thousand league coins."
"Exactly. And what is a deposit for? It is there to cover accidents. We had an accident. At worst, they keep the deposit and we call it even. That is what the deposit is for. Nobody is going to hold us responsible beyond that."
"Going through the formal adoption process would cost you at least fifty thousand on top of what you have already paid. Report it as a loss and the ten thousand covers it. And you will not have inspectors showing up at your door every six months either."
Nova thought about the counterargument. "The people at the Pokemon Prison are not going to believe me. I report a lost Purrloin and then a Purrloin is suddenly living in my house. That is not subtle."
"So what? There is no rule that says you cannot have a Purrloin as a pet. You caught one. It looks like the one you lost. That is your story, and nobody can prove otherwise. You just hold your ground."
"And think about who you are imagining on the other side of this. Do you really think Alliance employees are sitting around looking for excuses to investigate trainers over a Purrloin? Do you think they want to travel out here and spend a week chasing down a few extra coins from you? They would rather be at their desks with a cup of tea. Trust me on this. The Pokemon Prison will not ask a single question."
Nova found he could not argue with the logic. He thought about the Security Officers in Lune Town, supposedly the finest selected from cities across the region, who had voted not to chase retreating terrorists because they did not want to risk further losses. If officers of that caliber were choosing the path of least effort when a clean exit was available, the probability of a Pokemon Prison clerk deciding to investigate Nova over a small, theft-prone cat that had never once hurt anyone was essentially zero.
His real concern was different.
"You are putting your own guarantee on the line for this. If it causes you problems, I would feel responsible."
Mort made a sound that suggested this was the least of his concerns.
"Reputation? After what Marty did to me, I am not sure I have much left worth protecting. Every trainer from that era knows the story. I walk into a room and people are already thinking about it. All I want is for you to get strong enough to actually earn the title of Ground-type Master at the Master Tournament, and then fight your way into the Elite Four. That is the only thing that is going to let me hold my head up again."
Nova did not push back on that. It was the wound that had never fully closed for Mort. The battle against Marty Davison had ended with a 6-0 loss, not a single one of Mort's Pokemon left standing. In his mind, it had defined how others saw him ever since.
The truth was more complicated. Trainers who had followed competitive battles in that era remembered the match as one of the great ones, two masters at their peak producing something worth watching. A loss in a contest like that was not a mark against someone. If anything, it was proof of how high the level had been. But knowing that and feeling it were different things, and Mort felt it every day.
There are always winners and losers in a battle. But a Trainer who fights a match that people are still talking about decades later has accomplished something that most never will. The scoreboard at the end does not tell the whole story, and sometimes the one who loses is the one remembered longest.
Mort, as the one who had actually lived through it, was the last person who could see it that way. His personality did not let him set things down easily, and this particular thing he had been carrying for years. Getting him to genuinely move past it would probably require more than words. The only thing that might actually reach him was the sight of his disciple standing at the top, wearing the Ground-type Master title, with Marty Davison's successor somewhere behind him in the rankings.
The rest of the Purrloin matter sorted itself out quickly. Nova did not even need to go to the Pokemon Prison in person. Mort made a single call as the guarantor, confirmed the loss, and agreed to forfeit the deposit. The Pokemon Prison considered the matter closed.
Later that evening, during a video call, Nova showed Mort the contents of Taylor's safe. Mort had done a lot to help make things work, and Nova felt the old man deserved a share of whatever had come out of it.
Mort looked over the table of jewelry and mineral materials with mild, unimpressed eyes.
"That Team Origin executive of yours was clearly planning to raise a Ground-type or Rock-type Pokemon," he said. "These gems and minerals are exactly the kind of thing you would stockpile for that purpose. Good supplementary material for either type."
That answered a question Nova had been sitting with. He had not been able to figure out why someone like Taylor would collect jewelry. Now it made sense. Taylor had been completely confident in his plan to produce a powerful Pokemon through the breeding operation he had been running. The gems and minerals had not been collected for their monetary value. They had been gathered for a specific Pokemon that Taylor had expected to hatch once everything went to plan.
That Pokemon, a Trapinch egg produced from the entire scheme, was currently sitting in the sand basin on the second floor of Nova's house. It would take at least another month and a half to hatch. When it did, those materials would go exactly where Taylor had always intended them to go. Just not quite in the way Taylor had planned.
Nova tried to set aside some of the materials for Mort as a gesture of thanks. The old man turned it down without much ceremony.
"What would I do with them? I do not have any new Pokemon to raise. I would just end up sending them back to you eventually. Stop worrying about appearances and put every resource you have toward building your team's strength. That is what matters right now."
Then he hung up, presumably to handle the Purrloin paperwork.
Nova looked over at the dining table. Purrloin was lying there in what appeared to be a nap. But its small ears were moving in a way that had nothing to do with sleeping, tracking the sounds in the room with quiet, careful attention.
It had been listening the entire time.