Chapter Three: Watch and Learn
Little known fact, humans do not respond to Antidotes as quickly or as completely as Pokémon do. It took ten of the things to relieve the scientist's symptoms, though to be fair that could have been due to the source of his poisoning, at least in part. Two full hours passed as I waited for him to recover, occasionally puking his guts out. It was not fun in the least.
By the time he was in decent shape again, I'd finished investigating the balls on the rack. As expected, I couldn't tell them apart from normal balls at all. I was turning to Spitpyre to suggest smashing them to bits when he finally got enough breath in him to speak.
"That won't do any good," the scientist said. "I'm working on new designs for the transmitter system, to make them harder to detect. They already work fine." I gave him a look, wordlessly urging him to continue. After a few wracking coughs, he went on by saying "Arabella wants to keep this scheme of hers going, move it into other regions. She doesn't want someone from Silph or Devon Corp finding her little trinkets. Several other scientists are working the same project."
"Well, I planned on shutting her down at the source anyway," I growled, Spitpyre echoing my displeasure, "but I never even mentioned any of that. So how did you know I wasn't just into breaking shit for fun?" I asked, head tilting to the side as I questioned him.
"Why else would you be down here?" he answered my question with a question. "No one ever comes down here, even those fools looking for a Rotom have never found this place," he explained, still wheezing softly.
"You guys are horrible about giving out information on plans and objectives, you know that? If I had just been some random guy who found his way down here, I'd know way too much now, idiot," I sighed, shaking my head. Even when its in my favor, idiocy annoys me. "But forget that. I'm looking for Arabella. Where is she?"
"Look, I'm not very invested in her project, not at all. I only took this assignment because she said I could have funding for my research upstairs if I helped her out. I got my degree in chemistry and engineering to try and prove there were real ghosts out there, not just Ghost-types that seem to be ghosts. I hate making her drugs for her, but she wouldn't even let me work on my real research if I didn't keep it up. Now that I've got my equipment built, I could care less if she stays in business. But now that I'm on board, if I stop getting results or if she finds out I helped anyone find her she'll kill me," he said, coughing still more from the exertion of speaking. Little flecks of purple slime splattered out of his mouth as he did, while I slipped aside. Neutralized or not, Muk slime is not something you touch willingly. This guy was going to have bad breath from hell for months.
"If you don't help me, I'll have my buddy here melt the locks off of those cages and then let my Glaceon back out to freeze the door and lock you down here," I threatened. "I don't want to see you dead, particularly, but I'm sure they," I motioned to the Electric and Grass-types, some of whom were still raging at their captivity, "most certainly do."
"Alright, so I live a little longer if I talk. What stops her from messing me up later? Or her boss, for that matter? He knows what's up same as I do," the scientist asked, running a shaky hand over his face and flinging slime down to the floor.
"I got a plan for that. You're not gonna like it, but it'll keep you breathing. Your research is dead, unless you wanna join it, you can tell me what I wanna know and then fake it."
He talked. It took a while to convince him that yes, I would in fact kill him if he made me. Apparently my having saved his life from the Muk's toxic remains had led him to believe I lacked the stomach for it, until I pointed out that I had let my Glaceon kill said Muk to begin with. That got his mouth flapping finally.
I learned that his finished transmitter prototypes were delivered to the desert on Route 228. Arabella, it seemed, had gotten brave over the years, its a very short walk from that desert right to the Battleground, frequented by every Gym Leader in Sinnoh, and a number of other strong trainers or even ex-Champions have been known to come in for a battle as well. The exact location of the drop varied, he told me. He had never actually seen where they ended up, though on one occasion he'd seen a man in desert camouflage arrive to pick up the shipment. While it wasn't as specific as I'd have liked, it narrowed things down a lot considering I'd had the whole region to search before. So, that left two objectives on the agenda, disposing of the evidence of my presence in the lab in such a way that let the scientist live, and setting out to continue narrowing down my target's location.
Of course, I couldn't leave those Pokémon there, so I decided to let them help me out with my deception. The scientist turned over their balls willingly enough, and after making sure these Pokéballs had not been tampered with, I returned them all and uploaded them to my storage system, along with his Hippowdon and Porygon-Z. Much as I'd have preferred to release them, the Grass-types were too weakened and the Electric-types were too vicious from their mistreatment. I'd donate them to a rehabilitation program later. Then, I demanded his coat and glasses. The glasses, I smashed and left under the work table. The coat, Spitpyre gladly tore into pieces. To make it authentic, I made sure it got a little bloody. He really didn't like that part, but he lived with it, using part of his shredded coat as a bandage. It was a very shallow wound on the back of his hand, I doubted it would even scar if he cared for it properly. Spitpyre then used his weakest fire technique, Ember, to char the wiring that kept the collector plate functioning. From there, I called out Lucky, waking him from his stunned state with a Revive. Grumpy as he was from losing his battle, he was all too happy to vent his rage when I had him blast the room repeatedly with electric attacks. With nothing to redirect the energy, it wound up charring the walls, bursting chemistry sets, and blackening portions of the scientist's coat. With the doors of the cages open and the collector damaged, it would look like the scientist had gotten careless on security and maintenance, leaving the captives free to escape and murder him horribly. We were free to leave. I left a few pieces of lab coat on the way up, including an entire arm stuck in the doorway. As far as any investigator would know, the Pokémon had escaped and killed their captor, wrecking the place in the process. With no body in sight, they'd likely assume one or more of the captives was hungry as well as vengeful, and never notice a few that the captive's Pokéballs were missing.
Big Bird didn't want to carry the guy, but eventually I convinced her. He didn't want to ride with her either, but I didn't give him a chance to argue. I put a bag over his head and used the handcuffs Looker had given me for when I brought someone in for the police. Then, we took off, him dangling from her talons, and headed to nearby Eterna City. Once I got back to my office, I called Looker up on my PokéGear and waited around for the uniformed cop they sent in to pick him up. With that out of the way, night was close to falling again. Rather than immediately set out on the lengthy flight out to the northern island where the scientist had directed me, I decided to get a good night's sleep and thus headed home.
I arrived at the Pokémon Center in the Survival Area, right next door to the Battleground, after sunset the next day. I spent most of the day getting some additional equipment together for the trip, and making sure the right people knew where I was going. I had no desire to die of thirst if I got myself lost somehow. I chose night for several reasons, most prevalent among them being that living in Sinnoh had left me unaccustomed to the heat I knew I'd find on Route 228 during the day. It had been years since my days as a child in the tropical Hoenn region after all.
When I arrived, Big Bird demanded, in her shrieking way, to stay with me. She wanted her turn outside the Pokéball. I shrugged, popping into the Center to make sure the team was in top form after the pounding some of them had taken the day before. If she wanted some time out, I was fine with that, her colors blended with the night better than most of my mons, and she'd be useful for scouting the area besides. As we departed, she glided and flapped along, reveling in her flight but staying fairly close.
It took me an hour of hiking along to locate the rough approximation of one of the drop-off points my new informant had directed me to. It took me another hour of backtracking when I realized I had walked right past it. Stupid desert, everything looks the same. Even in bright moonlight, telling one patch of barren sand from another is not one of my strong points. When I had the right place, using Stark Mountain as a reference point, I set down the crate of Pokéballs, then backed off to find a hiding place nearby.
Hiding in the desert is also hard. There is so little there to break line of sight, no trees to climb, nothing. And with everything looking the same there, anything that doesn't look like a patch of sand tends to stand out. So, I didn't try looking too hard before I called Maiden out and just had her dig me a burrow at an angle into the side of a dune. Big Bird, still wanting time out of her ball, was allowed to fly in a wide circle above my position. She'd keep an eye out for threats while I kept watch.
The scientist said that pickups of merchandise usually took place in the middle of the night. I'd caught a lucky break catching him when I did, just before he took a load of his prototypes for delivery. It cut down on the waiting, as well as the chance that his lab would be discovered. I couldn't use a tracking beacon of my own (supplied by Looker's people) slipped into one of the crate to find the enemy if they thought he was dead.
It was a long wait. Big Bird gave the occasional screeching cry, keeping me informed of her position. I didn't stir for those, had she been trying to warn me of danger she'd have swooped lower, put more alarm into her voice. I had a decent view of the crate and its immediate surroundings myself, despite the small size of the hole I was hiding in. Maiden had used Dig to make it, but had not followed through on the move at all. A hole big enough for a thirty foot Steelix would be all but uesless as a hiding spot, even if it had any integrity at all. So, she'd mostly just drilled in with the tip of her tail and called it good.
Even with a clear vantage, I would never have been able to see the dull, sand colored wood of the crate if I didn't know where to look. So it was no surprise that when a tall man in desert camo arrived to pick it up, Big Bird saw him first and gave a fierce screech of warning. I picked him out then, if only because he was moving. And, I observed, he moved well, falling into a fighting crouch and readying a Pokéball to throw as needed. He took in his surroundings in a long, slow scan of the sky and surrounding desert, before quickly getting back to his feet and walking to the crate. He inspected it thoroughly as well, though I knew he wouldn't find my tracking beacon. It was, after all, glued to the inside of one of the Pokéballs on the very bottom of the pile. Satisfied that all was well, he called out a Rampardos, one of the rare extinct Pokémon resurrected by science, and ordered it to pick up the shipment and follow him.
I let them go. I could have caught him and squeezed the location I wanted out of the guy, but that would have warned his boss something was wrong. As wary as he seemed, it would be unlikely for the higher ups to believe a wild mon had taken him down. So, I let him get entirely out of sight, then climbed out of my burrow and, dusting sand off of myself, brought up my Pokétch's Marking Map application. Satisfied that it was working, I checked the Marking Map function on my Pokégear. Both working without a hitch. Even if one broke down, odds were good the other would still be in good shape. I do love backups. Like overkill, there is no such thing as too much precaution.
Calling Big Bird back down to me, we set off across the desert. She settled in to fly slowly behind me, low enough that the down-draft from her wing beats blew my footprints apart. Funny enough, I never taught her that trick, yet one look at her preening face showed she was doing it on purpose. Clever girl. Knowing it would be nigh impossible for someone to pick up my trail by sight, I picked up the pace a bit, trusting her to blow away the deeper tracks I was making.
Eventually we came to a series of large dunes, with my Marking Map showing the signal coming from the largest of them all. I crouched on a smaller dune a ways off, looking over the surrounding area for signs of a building or encampment. Nothing jumped out at me.
"Big Bird, see anything worth pointing out?" I asked the Keen Eyed raptor. She had been scanning too, but as I turned to see her response I saw she had focused sharply on something. Following her gaze, I found... cacti. There were quite a few of them, some tall and branching, others squat and round. All covered in needles, of course. They were growing in a loose ring around the large dune, and up the sides as well. That was a little odd, no form of cactus plant is native to Sinnoh's small desert to my knowledge. Still, I had passed several on my trek, and people do have a distressing habit of introducing non-native species between regions. How they got there seemed unimportant to me, however, when compared to my Pokémon's interest in them. I was opening my mouth to ask when one of them moved.
The Cacnea turned to face me, shuffling on its tiny legs, then settled back to the ground. A moment later, one of the taller Cacturne stretched its arms, relieving tension on its joints, before resuming its pose. That explained a lot, my Flying-type companion would know at once what the supposed plants actually were. The cactus based Grass-type family we were looking at is often found in deserts in several regions, though no one is sure if they are natives or populations built by released Pokémon. All that is known is that the species seems to have originated in Hoenn's desert areas around what is now Route 111. And that they are terrifyingly dangerous predators that sleep, concealed as cacti during the day, before rising to stalk and kill prey at night when day dwellers are exhausted by the heat.
That gave me a moment's pause. Cacnea and Cacturne are nocturnal hunters. Yet, it was the middle of the night and these were all dormant. They should have been out wandering, stalking weakened people and Pokémon, not sitting in place. They were wide awake, but immobile. Wild Cacnea and their evolved form do not act like that. Which could only mean they were, in fact, trained examples. A camouflaged security force, perhaps. That spoke of an extreme level of preparation, especially as there was no actual sign of anything for them to be guarding. Going off their positions and the readings on my Marking Map, the balls must have been somehow taken inside the dune.
Much as I hated the idea, it seemed more waiting would be required. I could take out an army of Cacnea or Cacturne, using Ice, Fire, Flying, and for the Cacturne, Fighting-type moves. But it would probably draw attention, cutting down time I would need to find an entrance. I was tempted to do it anyway, and just fight my way into the base I was sure would be inside. But, even with type advantage out the ass on my side, there were enough enemies in sight that I knew I wouldn't get out unscathed. I'd have to fight full force, hitting hard and fast, which might get my quarry killed. It would be best to wait, and see where the entrance could be found in the morning.
Had I known what I would find, I'd have risked the quick approach.