Chapter Two: Traveling Expenses
As it turns out, we did not in fact head for Canalave City. Its where I normally go when I need to travel beyond the borders of Sinnoh, as cargo and passengers come and go by ship regularly from the city via the docks. On this occasion though, I had forgotten to factor Oak and Lorelai into my thinking. At their direction, we headed instead for a small airport a ways north of Hearthome City. I hadn't even known it was there, but upon arriving I could see I'd have had little use for it anyway. Travel by air is apparently ridiculously expensive. But of course, I was on the job now. And I include expenses in my bill, travel included. I just wouldn't need to bother with a receipt for this one.
Neither Oak nor Lorelai is what I'd really call rich. But neither of them is anything like poor either. In point of fact, had they not spent so very much of their money on things like Lapras Preserves, Pokédex development and refinement, and so on they likely would be rich. Being Elite Four pays very well from what I hear, let alone being Champion. Oak had saved up a pretty nest egg during his time as Champion, back in the days of his youth. Lorelai was certainly no slouch in that department herself, having had enough cash to purchase the rather large plot of ocean-front property needed for her project. To top it off, they were of course both famous and highly respected. Assuming either of them walked into a bar, they wouldn't spend a dime buying their own drinks.
Point being, rather than the cheap but effective trip I'd had in mind, stretching over a week to reach the Sevii Islands, we arrived in Kanto in just a bit more than six hours. After that, it was a simple matter of calling out Big Bird and settling in to follow Oak and Lorelai on another flight, sans plane, to Floe Island.
Conversation is all but impossible during Pokémon based flight. So to is reviewing the reports my clients had collected for me about the theft. What you can do during a long flight (and despite the speed at which we were moving, it does take a bit to reach the Sevii Islands from northern Kanto) is think. I'd already read through the documents provided on the flight over, so as I leaned against Big Bird's soft feathers to cut wind resistance I went over the information I'd been given.
The entry point for whoever had committed the thefts was out in the ocean to the north of Floe Island. Whoever had done it had access to either a boat or Surf-capable Pokémon. Not much help, Water-types are extremely numerous across every region. The sea is vast, after all, not even including the lakes, ponds, streams and rivers that flow into it. If travel had been made possible by Pokémon, however, it was probably more than one. You'd need something like a Wailord to transport the estimated number of people who'd perpetrated this crime.
The preserve is guarded by fencing all the way around, covering the entrance to Icefall Cave on the northeastern side of the island and the small lake that surrounds it, and then continuing over the rocky hills to the coast. From there, pylons driven deep into the ocean floor allow fencing to continue on for ten miles, rising above the waves. You can't even Dive under, as the security fence goes right to the bottom. Still, breaking in would be a cinch for anyone with the right tools or mons if a fence alone was entrusted with keeping people out. Even a fence you can neither go over (the damn thing is close to fifty feet high and lined with razor sharp wire) or under can be burned or cut through eventually. Which is exactly why I proposed the guard towers.
There were five of them in total, and they hadn't been inexpensive to build. But Lorelai was taking this project seriously, and hadn't spared the expense for security as many would have. Two stood atop the tall hills above Icefall Cave, three rose from the waves out beyond the shore. With their height and spacing, anyone trying to come in would be spotted by one of the five guards each individual tower housed, or by one of the Keen Eyed Pokémon they kept on hand. They were on duty for a month at a time, then off for a month to return home. So everyone stayed fresh, no one got sloppy. The sea-towers had a small dock for speedboats, and all five were equipped with radios in addition to the guards' individual gear. Anyone trying to come in would be spotted in a hurry, and guards armed with a variety of Pokémon would converge on their location to deter them. When Oak and Lorelai hired me, I took the job seriously. Not only had I handled security personally for several months, I'd tested the guards multiple times through mock break-ins before leaving to pursue other interests. Their fast-response training was top-notch, and while I'm certain I could take any one of them in single battle they don't come in one at a time. If a poacher showed themselves, they'd find themselves facing as many as fifteen trainers simultaneously.
It was a good setup, but even the best security has weaknesses. As Big Bird set down on the exterior platform for guard tower five, I saw the hole in our planning. Everyone involved, myself included, had set this preserve up to keep out the average trainers looking for a Lapras. And for that sort of individual, I admit security was honestly overkill. Or I would, if I believed there was such a thing. But the best security has weaknesses, and looking at tower five I knew ours hadn't been the best.
"I'll leave you to it," Oak said, looking away from the scene in front of me. "I'm headed over to tower one, where we set up the infirmary. The survivors are there, we can't risk moving them to a proper hospital yet." I nodded, scowling at the scene in front of me. "Call me on the PokéGear if you need anything," he called before his Fearow spread its wings and shot off towards the island with a shriek. Lorelai stayed, and while her face remained impassive as ever her eyes blazed with enough anger to equal my scowl at the least. What was I scowling at? What had even Lorelai, Ice Queen of Kanto, glaring holes through the steel deck?
Blood, mostly. Three chalk outlines, evidence placards still resting beside them from when crime scene photos had been taken. One whole wall of the main observation room was missing, a long cooled puddle of slag metal marring the floor below where it had been. One of the "lucky" survivors had been standing near it when it went, extensive burns had kept him out of the fight that followed.
"Neither of the guards who survived have been able to talk yet?" I asked Lorelai, striding forward to look over the scene more closely.
"No, they're both in critical condition. They don't expect Samson to make it," she hooked her chin back towards the railing. A sticky mess of blood and hair clung to the rim there. Samson had been in charge of this tower when it was hit. No one was sure what hit him, but he'd been sent flying out of the watch room and struck his head on the rail when he came down.
"The reports," I spoke up after a sombre silence, "said the cameras, radios, and other gear were all fried. Lack of radio contact is what brought the team from tower three over here to check in. The office are is trashed, but it doesn't look like they were tossing the drawers. Pretty sure that's collateral damage from the fight. And in addition to the Lapras, this tower's fast-response boat was also stolen. Probably taken through that hole in the fence when they left," I nodded toward said hole, just visible at surface level far below us. "Anything else worth mentioning?" Lorelai shook her head as I worked what we knew through my own. "Ok, here's how I think it went down..."
I laid it out for Lorelai. A strike team had approached from the sea-ward side and managed to climb the side of the tower to watch-level, then rapidly melted their way through the wall using a Fire-type move. One of the first assailants through no doubt had a Magnemite or higher evolution of that family with them, its magnetic field used to disable monitoring and communications gear upon arrival. One of the dead guards had signs of electrical damage, so it had been used in the battle as well. And it had been a battle, the guards had sold their lives as expensively as possible. There were blood stains near the entry hole of several different Pokémon, and human blood that probably didn't belong to any of the guards as well. The guards, excepting the poor soul who'd been burned down alongside the wall, had been found naked. Thus it seemed likely that the attackers had stolen their uniforms, descended to sea-level, and set out on the boat to capture their fill of Lapras. Then they'd cut through the fence and hauled ass, while anyone still in the tower had left the way they came. It had been quick, brutal, and efficient.
"One thing I still don't understand is how they got close to the tower without being spotted," Lorelai looked out at the miles of ocean outside the preserve. "The whole point of the towers was to spot potential intruders coming. I walked over to the hole in the wall in answer and carefully leaned out to point down.
"I imagine they traveled underwater until they got right up to the structure, and surfaced there," I indicated a darker patch of water, likely leading to an underwater cave or cavern. "When you hired me before we scouted the area for deep water dive spots and made sure none of them were inside the perimeter." I shook my head, cursing mentally. "We didn't think to make sure they couldn't be used to slip in close." Resisting the urge to punch the wall, I turned back to my client. "Anything else worth mentioning that wasn't in the reports?" Lorelai hesitated before answering.
"Yes," she finally said. "We lost 17 Lapras, not 15. One of the males was killed, and one more was stolen." I looked at her inquisitively. "They took Gerty," she clarified softly. It shouldn't have been a surprise, but I gasped anyway. And then growled.
Gerty was the matriarch of the Lapras pod that lived in the preserve. The oldest female, and the most powerful of the lot. The easiest way to actually find the Lapras swimming in those miles of ocean would be to attract them. The sound of something thrashing in the water will bring them in just as fast as it would a hungry predator, if for very different reasons. The gentle beasts are constantly bringing terrestrial Pokémon who was out to sea from Floe Island back to shore, they actively enjoy ferrying creatures across the water. Gerty would have been one of if not the first one to arrive.
I liked Gerty. I'd spent rather a lot of time surfing around the perimeter of the preserve over the months I spent here while the towers were built. Gerty had come with me most of those times, diligently watching in case I needed a ride back to shore. She was gentle, even for a Lapras, and more friendly than some of the shy beasts. Even Bruce, my Sharpedo, had liked her sufficiently that I'd never had to restrain him from trying to Crunch her shell when she got close. She was the very first Lapras to have been released into the preserve, set loose in the icy waters inside Icefall Cave and allowed to find her way through the underwater caverns to the sea. And she was powerful indeed, hatched from an egg bred from Lorelai's two tame Lapras. Gerty was quite a prize indeed, far beyond any of the youngsters that had joined her in her new home or the many offspring she'd personally produced.
"Alright," I had to grit my teeth to speak levelly, but I managed. "So we have a good idea what happened and why. Those are important bits of info, what and why. Is there anything that points to who?"
"I've got something that might help," called one of the guards from tower four who'd been working on mending the fence below. "Sorry to interrupt ma'am, sir," he said with a respectful nod to Lorelai as he ducked inside to join us. "We just got the dead male ready to transport back to shore, and thought you'd want to know we'd found these Sharpedo teeth broken off in his shell," he explained, holding up a plastic evidence bag with six sharp, serrated triangles of white enamel rattling inside.
Cook, as his name tag identified him, was a good guard to have spotted those and brought them straight to the boss. But he was a Kanto boy born and raised, and very likely had never seen a Sharpedo in his life. The big sharks are native to the waters of my home region, Hoenn, after all. Hell, there aren't any Dark-types at all in Kanto, though the reason for that evades even Prof. Oak to this day.
"Those aren't Sharpedo teeth," I said knowingly, my hand unconsciously reaching up to grip the Dive Ball which houses Bruce. "Too small. Those," I couldn't keep a little quiver of angry excitement out of my voice, "are Carvahna fangs."