Things were surprisingly uneventful after the unexpected change Iris brought into my revenge-obsessed life.

Her presence meant that like it or not, I have to take things slow for her own safety. I don't trust anyone else to protect and hide her from Team Plasma. As such, my plans to sabotage Team Plasma's plans have slowed down considerably, but thankfully still progressing as it is supposed to be. There is progress, just a little... behind schedule.

It has been two months. Even the seasons had changed as Unova had entered autumn and is right on track to experience the coming winter. My main focus for Iris was to get her to learn how to speak properly and to also be able to read and write with some level of proficiency. She is a bright and cheerful child that learns quickly, although I still wish she dials back a little in regards to her obsession with dragons.

As for me, I had adopted a nocturnal lifestyle in order to accommodate taking care of Iris while sabotaging Team Plasma's plans at the same time. If there's one thing I had learnt during my years working as an undercover spy, it's that small things do accumulate over time. When I first arrived in Unova I started off by violently eradicating each and every Team Plasma base I could uncover and tried to salvage useful information from those places. Afterwards, it largely transitioned into information gathering and building my own connections, which eventually led me to the auction house where I met Iris. I managed to meet the supposed major supporter which Team Plasma's finances were supposedly reliant on to keep things going and successfully managed to intercept both the object and the message he wanted me to pass on to Team Plasma, which was Iris and to terminate Leticia Dandolos respectively, who I found out later through some information digging that she is in actuality, my cousin.

I know for a fact that Team Plasma's biggest figurative gold mine, that masked bastard, did not establish communication with Team Plasma often. Since whoever that masked bastard was that auctioned Iris off seemed to really want Leticia dead, and I'm pretty sure that Team Plasma is still in the dark about the task that they were supposedly given by that bastard and thus, had not yet take action, it would mean that this might be a future trigger that would result in another discord between them somewhere down the line. If I'm lucky, he might just cease supporting Team Plasma all together in his anger and this would result in immediate cash flow problems for those terrorists. Like this, Team Plasma wouldn't be able to keep up with the scale of operations that they are currently undergoing and it would make it easier to break them apart.

I had not just been trying to locate and target Team Plasma's hideouts. Their secret religious gatherings, their attempts to pull in supporters for their cause, be it for manpower or asking for donations, I sabotaged it whenever the chance presented itself. To me, it is more effective to dissolve Team Plasma if I can first prevent it from growing any bigger and gaining traction. Every single gathering I busted, every single of their secret hideouts that I demolished, I always managed to extract a piece of useful information here and there for me to piece out a bigger picture that I can use for my next plans. It's getting to the point that Team Plasma are starting to get paranoid from holding any activities in the southeastern region of Unova that I am mainly active in. They still have no idea just who was able to keep locating their bases and continuously ruin their expansion plans one after the other without them catching neither hide nor hair of the saboteur. They made it so laughably easy for me to ruin their plans, or maybe it's just that Team Rocket was way more professional and smarter when it comes to running a terrorist organisation but that's just to be expected, I really hadn't seen anyone quite like Giovanni and Alice and they were rather brilliant. I still haven't met anybody else that could match up to those two.

The network of informants that I had been trying to build since day one is growing steadily. Not big enough to be of great use, but useful enough to get certain things done. I'm starting to be able to get my hands on more relevant information in regards to those Plasma scums and lately, I had managed to get my hands on a somewhat reliable source of information that revealed to me that there is another Team Plasma hideout that had been recently set up in Undella Town. This hideout was where they used to meet and host interested parties that might be willing to invest into their cause. From what I gathered they are currently trying to fish for another sponsor that is able to provide substantial financial support, which means that Team Plasma is trying to reduce their reliance on that mysterious backer that auctioned Iris off and that their relationship is still as frosty as ever. To me, that is good news.

Team Plasma's targets are affluent individuals with too much money to know what to do with them. This is definitely worth sabotaging and who knows, this time I might be able to get my hands on a core member within the Plasmas and make him or her spill everything they know, then I can finally make a breakthrough in this endeavour.

I have been staking out and observing the hideout for a week now, memorising the layout of the surrounding area, taking note which individuals frequent the place regularly and are thus, most likely members of the organisation. I noted down possible entry points and escape routes, the timing of the patrols done by the local law enforcement so that I can choose a good time that won't allow them to disrupt my plans. Anything that might help in the subsequent levelling of the hideout, I made a point to burn it into my mind.

But first, I need to send Iris off into the good hands of a caretaker so that I can do my work without needing to constantly worry about her.

"Iris! We need to go!"

"Okay!"

Iris bounded up to me with a light skip in her steps, already packed whatever she thought she needed in a small little bag that I had bought for her. Seeing her rate of progress, sometimes I have trouble believing that just two months ago she was just a feral child who was unable to speak coherently and who didn't even know what a shower is. Now, she is able to speak fluently and act like a child her age. Her reading and writing skills are still a work in progress, but she should be able to get there soon enough.

The only thing that didn't change is her obsession with dragons. It still hadn't diminished one bit. Her clothes? All have dragons printed on them. Her sentences? Can't go with ten sentences without mentioning dragons at least once. Her drawing book? Dragons, dragons, and more dragons. What does she want to be when she grows up? A trainer who trains dragons.

A dragon obsessed maniac, that would be my description of her.

I held her hand as we made our way to the opposite block. More specifically, to the place of residence in which I was told lives that one individual that nobody in this district will ever want to mess with out of their respect for her. I knocked on her door and soon enough, a kind elderly woman greeted us with a warm smile on her wrinkled face.

Martha, that is the woman who practically fed all of the homeless children here at one point and these children had now all grown into adults that joined the darker part of society which festers within this same district. She is the only reason why the two opposing gang factions in this area are not outrightly tearing each other's throats out, because both gangs are made up of kids who she had once fed and raised until they reached adulthood and she doesn't like it when they fight.

"Iris!" The old woman welcomed the girl with a big hug which Iris returned eagerly while laughing happily the entire time. She let us into her house and I decided to help her with moving some of her bulkier stuff while I'm here. It would just take a few minutes anyway.

"Not staying for dinner, dear?"

"I need to head off to work," I lied smoothly, both for Iris' and Martha's sake, as I watched Iris happily drink up the soup Martha had cooked in anticipation of Iris' arrival this evening. This had been the arrangement we have been living by for almost two months. Every evening when the sun is about to set, I would leave Iris with Martha so that there will be at least an adult taking care of her when I'm not around. That will give me the time and freedom to do what I need to do to further my quest to sabotage Team Plasma and ultimately find a way to bring them down. I will usually be back by sunrise and take Iris home, make her some breakfast, take a nap to catch up on my sleep, wake up and cook lunch for Iris, and then spend the rest of the afternoon either catching up on my sleep or perusing through whatever new information that I might have obtained in my latest conquest until evening comes around once again.

I told Iris and Martha that I have a night job because I don't want them to know what I am actually doing, but I think Martha already had a hunch that my "job" is not as innocent as it seems. Still, she never pried, and for that I'm grateful. Martha had refused any and all monetary compensation I offered for taking care of Iris, but that does not stop me from doing so in other ways. I made sure that her fridge is regularly stocked, paid for all her rent and utility bills, and if some idiot has been giving her some trouble I would "talk" some sense into him or her.

I was also told that sometimes one or two of the children which she used to take care of would drop by to visit, to check if she is alright and doing well, but I have never met any of them so far. Iris did meet them a few times when she was staying over at Martha's, saying that there's a baldie with lots of tattoos on his arms that was really nice to her, and that there was one woman who taught her how to read a few more new words and even gave her a new picture book with even more dragons. The slums are never a good place for anyone to live in, but it's the little stuff, the small acts of kindness from people like Martha that goes about in this poorest part of society that helps people try to find a new reason to continue living. I can never provide Iris a proper environment to grow up in and will never be a good role model, but Martha and the young adults who still visit her can fulfil the role that I never could.

"Stay safe," Martha saw me out of the door as Iris waved me goodbye, saying something about drawing some new dragons into her picture book and showing it to me the next morning. Thanks to the girl I really am starting to develop an allergy to the word "dragon" but I still managed to find myself agreeing to her request before I ultimately set off.

I headed for the nearest bus stop and waited for the bus. I could have asked exeggutor to teleport me to Undella Town straightaway but lately, Unova's law enforcement has been clamping down on the newest pokemon restrictions a lot more tightly. Ever since Team Plasma's uprising that originated from the Lacunosa Invasion, new laws have been put in place in regards to the kind of pokemon allowed to accompany their human companions within the city. There's size restrictions on what kinds of pokemon can be allowed to freely roam within the city. There's also a strict no teleportation rule within the city unless you are teleporting from one private property to another within the same city because the city's rules do not expand into private grounds. Teleportation from city to city is also strictly monitored. Anyone wanting to do so has to first exit the city, then teleport to the nearest designated teleport point of the city you wanted to go, which is also located outside the city, and then you have to walk into the city by foot. Basically, teleportation is only allowed outside of human settlements and anyone flouting any of these rules would be severely dealt with, unless you are authorised to be exempted from it by the local authorities for whatever reasons.

I never cared about adhering to these rules until now because while I'm perfectly capable of evading the law, I now have Iris to think about and accidents do happen sometimes when you least expect it. What will happen to Iris if I am forced to be on the run just because I was somehow caught flouting the no teleportation rule? I don't want to risk it, and this is why until I find a perfect home for her where I know she can grow up safe and happy without needing my protection, I will be stuck with having to adhere to these rules.

The bus that I was waiting for soon arrived and I boarded it without delay, wrapping my coat around me a little more tightly to ward off the cold autumn breeze. The temperature has been steadily dropping over the weeks and it wouldn't be long before Unova officially enters the winter season. From what I read from the news, not only will winter be expected to arrive much earlier this year, this year's winter will most likely be colder than the previous years, possibly the coldest in its recent history.

I found an empty two-seater seat nearer to the back of the bus and sat down, folding my arms around my chest and closing my eyes to catch some sleep. The bus will only reach my stop about an hour later. Nosy is dwelling within my smartwatch, I'm sure he will wake me up when I'm nearing my destination by getting the smartwatch to vibrate. For now, I can get some rest.

I have Plasmas to exterminate from the face of the earth tonight.


The vibration from my smartwatch woke me up as expected.

What wasn't expected was the colour of the sky outside. Since my schedule in the past week was a routine one with similarly fixed timings, I knew for a fact that usually by the time I reached my stop the sun would have already set, the skies turning almost a dark blue entirely. However, the sky was still bathed in a dark orange hue when Nosy woke me up, so I probably hadn't caught more than twenty minutes of actual shut eye.

So why did Nosy deemed it necessary to wake me up now?

My paranoia returned at full force and purged all sleepiness within my mind although I made sure not to show it outwardly. A quick glance at the scenery outside the window showed me that I am now on an entirely unfamiliar road. This is not part of the usual route the bus would take and I'm sure that there were no recent announcements from the service provider that there will be a temporary change in bus routes.

Something is really wrong.

A slight turn of my head made me realise that the seat beside me on my left which was previously unoccupied was now occupied by a little girl approximately between twelve to fifteen years of age, hugging a musharna close to her who was resting on her lap. Our eyes met and she sent me a sweet smile my way in greeting, one which I returned with a small silent nod. Another sweeping glance at the bus showed me that the bus is now about fifty percent occupied, which is weird because the bus is usually almost filled to the brim at this hour.

What's out of place was that these passengers were all males, and not just that, one look and I can tell that none of them are pushovers. Yes, they were acting like just any other passengers you usually see boarding a public bus, but the abnormalities could be seen from the way they carry themselves, how they tried to act normal, how they were sneaking glances in my direction in ways that were overly subtle to the point of unnatural, the small telltale signs that they were actually prepared for the possibility of combat occurring at anytime from the way their hands were constantly hovering near where their pokeballs are attached to their belt or stored in their pockets if the small spherical bulges in their pockets were anything to go by.

Survival instincts played a large part in allowing me to survive as long as I did in the nastiest parts of society. I have learnt very early on that whenever my instincts are screaming that something isn't right, usually, something is really wrong.

Everything in this bus is unnatural. No wonder Nosy decided to wake me up.

I clicked on the map function of my smartwatch to check on my current location and a quick display showed that I am still within Nimbasa, but had strayed far off course towards the northwestern side of the city instead of the eastern exit that I was originally heading for. According to the GPS, we will soon be arriving at a deserted industrial area that if I recall correctly, was slated to be demolished within the next few months. It would be the perfect spot anyone would choose to hold a big fight where destruction is inbound.

"The weather really is nice, isn't it? I always thought that the sunsets during autumn are the nicest."

My gaze travelled back to the girl sitting beside me who had initiated the conversation.

"Is that so?" I replied and pressed on the stop button within arm's reach to signal to the bus driver to make a stop at the next stop, deciding that if the bus does indeed stop and let me alight I will just let this go. For all I know I may have really just boarded the wrong bus in a moment of carelessness and I'm just being overly paranoid.

But if that is not the case…

The [BUS STOPPING] sign lit up in a bright red at the front of the bus, but the bus didn't come to a stop at the next bus stop nor did it look like it was planning to stop soon. In fact, it was speeding up. It seemed that my gut feeling was right, I am being targeted. If not me, then definitely the girl, which was highly unlikely.

"Yeap, but nobody at home ever has the time to watch the sunset with me. Everybody is always busy. Dad and Mum with the company, all my older cousins with their own respective things to do... Not them I fault them for it, but sometimes I do wish that everyone is not so busy."

"Sounds like you come from a big family."

"I won't exactly call it big," The girl laughed as her musharna let out a soft purr, "but I won't say it is a small family either. What I can say is that we are very tightly knitted."

"Sounds nice," I agreed as I tried to think of a reason why the girl would choose to sit beside me when there were so many other empty seats available, another oddity that I just realised. "Now, can we get to the main point?"

"Main point?"

"Yeah, for example, this."

I didn't give her any time to react. My left arm had lashed out and caught her neck in an iron grip while my right hand worked on releasing weavile from his pokeball at the same time. Weavile had immediately kicked the musharna away from us the moment he was released.

Every other "passenger" in the bus had immediately reacted, most of them trying to rescue the girl that I am holding hostage and some of them already releasing their pokemon from their pokeballs. Their actions were too coordinated, too smooth, and their responses too swift to be anything but professionals. They tried to rush me, but all I had to do to discourage them from doing so was to visibly tighten my grip around the girl's neck and it worked. Throughout this entire time, the bus never stopped, but instead picked up its speed.

"Just as I thought," I spoke out loud as I looked back at the girl as I used this extra time to release exeggutor and bisharp. "Care to explain?"

"I should have listened... this was a bad idea…" The girl wheezed out through the suffocating feeling from having her neck held by my iron grip. "Can you… let go…? I can ex… explain…"

'Master Jayce, teleportation is being hindered. Darktycin technology must have been employed,' Exeggutor dutifully informed me as bisharp and weavile placed themselves in front of me, weavile loudly hissing at what I assume to be the goons working under the girl or at least were in charge of her safety.

What's with me and my luck with little girls recently? The interpol girl, then Iris, and now this.

In any case, the bus obviously had a destination in mind and there can only be one reason when somebody is eager to send you off to a specific destination. It cannot be anything but an ambush where I will be placed at a clear disadvantage. Already, I can tell that we had entered the deserted industrial area.

We need to get out of here, fast.

'Exeggutor, Stomp.'

Exeggutor hit the bus with a powerful stomp that sent the whole bus shaking as though an earthquake had struck. It's powerful enough to get the bus to overturn and tumble until it crashes into the side of the road. Exeggutor's psychic barriers were enough to get us out of that relatively unscathed. With one unexpected move, I had dealt with most of the girl's bodyguards. It's a pretty good deal.

Bisharp simply cut open an exit for us as we strode out of the overturned and smoking bus which miraculously, haven't burst into flames yet. The girl was still struggling futilely in my hold as we walked into the open and surveyed the surroundings.

'Incoming!'

I heard the attacker coming at the same time exeggutor's warning rang out.

"LET HER GO YOU BASTARD!"

A swift brown blur crashed into exeggutor's psychic barriers before leaping backwards to gain distance when it realised it did not have the strength needed to break it. A scrafty had attacked us from practically out of nowhere. A roar could be heard as a large shadow loomed over us. We looked up, only to see an incineroar about to drop on us from above.

Guess the cavalry had arrived.

I wasted no time in deploying the rest of my team with the exception of drapion and hydreigon, who are the more destructive members, as we prepared ourselves for combat. Umbreon and shiftry are not with us right now, I had left them behind with Iris and Martha just in case they ever needed the protection, but our team is still fully capable of functioning as a deadly unit even when our numbers are not at full strength.

Bisharp intercepted and threw the incineroar away from us as the incineroar twisted its body in mid air and landed on its feet before skidding to a stop. A pangoro burst out from one of the abandoned warehouses nearby, firing a Dark Pulse which was easily matched by zoroark.

"Hey bastard! Yes, YOU! LET AMELIA GO!"

Right behind the incineroar was a young man who by estimate, was only a few years older than the girl in my grasp. He's nothing special, looks just like your average looking rebellious teenager. Short black hair, average build with some muscles in it, but the pupils of his eyes is a bright scarlet red, which is a rather rare colour to see even in this logic defying world.

Not wanting the little girl in my grasp to get in my way, I simply knocked her out by striking at the pressure point on her neck and let her unceremoniously fall onto the ground by my feet. That seemed to infuriate the teenager even further.

"If you think I'm going to let her go just because you say so, you are stupider than I thought."

"Wha- I'M NOT STUPID YOU ASSHOLE!"

Yeah, I'm going to add extremely easy to rile up about my description of him in the little list in my head too. Exeggutor sent me another telepathic message, telling me that the punk was not alone.

"You know what, I have places to be and things to do, so let's not waste everyone's time. I know there are two more of you hiding somewhere."

A slow clap could be heard as a woman around my age slowly revealed herself from where she had been hiding at a shadowy corner behind a warehouse on my left. A team of poison types accompanied her as she walked to stand beside the agitated young man at an unhurried pace. She's beautiful in a deadly sort of way, like a tempting rose with its thorns in full bloom, and even if her hair was a light platinum blonde in colour I can easily tell that she was related to the stupid punk beside her due to the colour of their eyes, a blood scarlet red.

"Pray tell, how did you know?" The woman asked as her silky voice filled the otherwise tense atmosphere. At the same time, another man about the same age as the incineroar's trainer walked out of his hiding spot as well. He also has black hair, but is a lot skinnier than the other one. The glasses he wore on his face gave him a slight bookish look as though he belonged to the library instead of a battlefield.

"Um, I think our priority should be to get Amelia out of there…?"

"Nope!" The woman chirped back at the nerdy teenager with her fingertips pressed against each other. "I already told her that this was a bad idea and she still wanted to go along with it, so let this be her punishment."

"Man, that's too harsh. She will be sporting some nasty bruises when this is all over and how are we going to explain that to our parents?"

"That she messed up?"

"Who cares?!" The hot-headed one interrupted their conversation as he glared at me like an angry little gremlin. "I'm pissed! PISSED! We spent fucking months trying to track this bastard and I'm not leaving until I give him a good beatdown! PANGORO!"

The pangoro roared a battlecry and charged at us. I decided that now was a suitable time to release drapion because it is the only pokemon I have that can match the pangoro's size. Drapion's pincers caught pangoro's paws as both pokemon began to wrestle in a contest of strength, but drapion wasn't planning on contesting in a fight of brute strength to begin with and instead chomped down on pangoro's shoulder with a Bug Bite.

Pangoro let out a cry of pain and drapion used this chance to push it away with a Cross Poison. I signalled for weavile and ninetales to assist when incineroar and scrafty had joined the fight, annoying the two pokemon with status inducing moves and keeping them at a healthy distance with ranged attacks.

Tendrils of grass bloomed beneath our feet as zoroark immediately worked on burning them away with Flamethrower. A tangrowth began to try snaring us with its numerous vines just as a lilligant pelted us with Magical Leaf. It's nothing exeggutor's barriers cannot withstand but it did obstruct our line of sight with how much of those leaves it was firing at us.

I grinned as the desire to let loose and battle to my heart's content slowly reignited within me. It's been a long time since I had a battle and the last time I participated in a decent one was the deathmatch I had with Giovanni. This is nowhere near that level, but it will be a nice warmup.

"Overheat."

Ninetales let loose a blazing torrent of white hot flames that incinerated lilligant's leaves and tangrowth's vines within seconds, creating an opening for greninja to engage the scrafty in close combat and push it back. A whimsicott tried to launch its sneak attack from above with Cotton Spore only to have that burned down by ninetales within seconds as well.

"Oh come on! That ninetales is just unfair! Lex, do something about it!"

"I'm trying!"

The incineroar and pangoro tried to finish ninetales off with a pincer attack but drapion had strategically placed herself to defend ninetales, knowing that ninetales was crucial in preventing those grass types from affecting us with their wide range of supportive status inducing moves. From what I could observe, the hot-headed one which goes by the name of Lex was either a Dark or Fighting Specialist, the one with glasses was a Grass Specialist and if the woman's pokemon is anything to go by, a Poison Specialist.

From what I could pick out from their words earlier, they had been trying to track me down for months. The likelihood that they were from Team Plasma was high since that was about the same time that I had started out destroying their bases one after the other. Good, I never thought that such an opportunity would quite literally drop into my lap. I'm going to capture them and take my time to grill every single thing they know about Team Plasma out of their mouths.

It's getting obvious as the seconds ticked by that the chances for the hot-headed and glasses trainer duo to win were getting slimmer and slimmer. Ninetales was a huge threat for the grass types commanded by the trainer with glasses and she was well-protected through drapion's and bisharp's collective efforts. Weavile was running interference, sneaking in cheap shots whenever it could and playing an excellent role in being the saboteur. Ninetales was able to slowly accumulate power through Nasty Plot under their protection and had no qualms laying waste to our opponents with a massive Inferno.

"Holy- LET! A LITTLE HELP HERE OR WE ARE ALL GOING TO BE BARBEQUED!"

There was a light chuckle sounding out from the other end before I heard a feminine voice giving out commands. The red-eyed woman had finally joined the battle.

"Arbok, Glare."

The arbok slithered its way into the battle at a speed faster than weavile could intercept, paralysing ninetales with a Glare before she could put up a Safeguard. Honchkrow and Zoroark had immediately leapt forward the moment ninetales was locked into place by the arbok's glare only to be intercepted by a stoutland.

That woman is in a different league from the other two. She is the real threat.

As much as I wanted to play out this battle to my heart's content, I knew exactly how Poison Specialists control the flow of their battle thanks to having worked under Henrik for a long time. I do not want to risk playing the long game with a Poison Specialist, something which they excel in as they let their venoms run its course within their victims' bodies until they eventually drop dead. It's not a one size fits all solution, but it is widely agreed among trainers that the most effective countermeasures against Poison Specialists is to end the fight as soon as possible.

The participation of the woman's scolipede, roserade, amoonguss, and weezing forced the rest of my team who had not yet joined the battle previously to finally jump into it. While the poison types do not individually possess firepower that could match my dark types, that doesn't make them any less lethal. Just one slip up on our part can easily make this go very bad for me like how the arbok had caught ninetales with its Glare and is now forcing her to be on the defensive.

"Hey, it's rude to take your eyes off your opponents in a battle."

I whipped out my dagger and blocked the pointy object that was about to stab me, spotting the woman who had somehow reached my back in that short moment of chaos where my eyes couldn't keep track of everything. Her venomoth flapped its wings, scattering powders all over the place and I immediately held my breath and jumped away, knowing how dangerous this can be should I even breathe in a single breath. That woman, however, had no concerns about those powder and lunged at me with the weapon that I now recognise as a butterfly knife in my previous world, but known as the butterfree knife in this new reality. It is a deadly weapon only used by people who truly know how to handle it.

From this alone I can deduce several things about this woman. She is used to fighting dirty like I do. She's not only good at fighting dirty, but is a pro in it. Most trainers are so used to fighting behind the safety of their pokemon but in a fight of life and death like what we are doing now, the trainers themselves can also be used as a valuable piece on the chessboard. Be it as bait or to be used as a surprise finishing move like how I almost ended Giovanni, trainers themselves are also combatants that are capable of turning the tide of the battle. She had nearly succeeded in stabbing me with that deadly butterfree knife that she wields so expertly when she exploited that perfect moment where I was spacing out and doing something that I had least expected from her.

It was at this moment that I am thankful that I had decided to learn how to defend myself with or without my pokemon ever since I joined Team Rocket. Whatever skills that I had learnt from my earlier years had just saved my life.

"Oooh, that was slick. I had heard about what you are capable of, but wasn't expecting you to be this good."

"You ain't seen anything yet."

The lethality of Poison Specialists increases with each passing second of the battlefield. This battle needs to end now. Not wanting to take any risks, I decided to finally release the insane dragon on my team. The three opposing trainers immediately leapt back to keep a safe distance from us the moment hydreigon appeared.

"What the- He really has a hydreigon?! Uncle wasn't pulling our leg?!"

"I thought he was joking too! Sis! DO SOMETHING!"

"Finally afraid? I told you guys a long time ago that this was a bad idea."

"CAN YOU DON'T ACT SO RELAXED?! IT'S A MOTHERFUCKING HYDREIGON!"

I couldn't be bothered to be amused by their antics. I simply gave hydreigon my orders.

"Go crazy, Dragon Pulse."

Hydreigon wasted no time in blowing everything up within his line of sight with salvos of Dragon Pulse. I signalled to him to cut it off after he had continuously bombarded our foes for more than ten seconds. It's not everyday that I had the golden opportunity to capture targets who had so helpfully fallen into my waiting hands for me to squeeze every bit of useful information out of their minds. There's no information to retrieve if they are dead.

"Did you accidentally erase them?" I cannot help but ask while waiting for the cloud of dust and smoke to settle. Hydreigon simply let out an unconcerned grunt as he hovered above us. He seemed to be in a good mood for being able to finally be allowed to participate in some indiscriminate destruction, even if it was just for a few seconds.

'They are still alive.'

Exeggutor's words made our attention turn sharp as we looked back at the dust cloud. A powerful beat of honchkrow's wings dispersed the obscuring smoke, revealing the three unharmed trainers who had decided that ambushing me was a bright idea.

"Oh my, we really nearly died back there."

"Sis, please, now is not the time. If we die here like this we are going to be remembered by everyone as a laughing stock."

"I-I think the main concern here should be the dying part, not the laughing stock part," the bookworm muttered loud enough for us to hear as he recalled his tangrowth and lilligant who were obviously unable to continue battling before raising his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "Uh… we come in peace?"

"Nice try, but try again," I flatly replied, arms crossed. Hydreigon let out another warning growl, accentuating my point.

"How about letting me try?" The woman asked with a cheerful voice as she idly flipped and unflipped her butterfree knife repeatedly while her arbok coiled itself protectively around its trainer. "For starters, hello greninja, it's been a long time! How are you and spiritomb doing?"

Greninja rolled his eyes in fond exasperation and to our surprise, crossed the distance to the other side in a single leap while snatching the unconscious little girl which I had knocked out earlier and bringing her along, allowing the woman to pat him on the head as he gently lay the unconscious girl down. Spiritomb slowly emerged from the woman's shadow, letting out a hollow howl of greeting as it began to converse with the pokemon of the people who had previously attacked us from out of practically nowhere.

Now that is a shocker.

"You know each other," I accused, to which greninja replied with a happy croak and a playful shrug of his shoulders in what I interpret as "but it was fun", with spiritomb fully supporting greninja's excuse. My eyes narrowed slightly as I started to piece the clues together. I had found it odd that greninja and spiritomb weren't participating in the battle as actively as they usually would, but I didn't think too much about it until now. I hadn't had them for very long, all I knew was that they used to belong to Asher and that I hadn't met any of those three trainers before, so those two could only possibly know them before they joined my team.

"You knew Asher."

The woman gave me a round of applause.

"You are getting close! Go on."

The conversations that I picked out from them ever since the start of this battle begin to play out in my mind once more.

"Sounds like you come from a big family."

"I won't exactly call it big, but I won't say it is a small family either. What I can say is that we are very tightly knitted."

"I'm pissed! PISSED! We spent fucking months trying to track this bastard and I'm not leaving until I give him a good beatdown! PANGORO!"

"What the- He really has a hydreigon?! Uncle wasn't pulling our leg?!"

"I thought he was joking too! Sis! DO SOMETHING!"

These three are most likely the little girl's cousins that she mentioned. The fact that they could easily get a public bus to change its route and replace all the passengers in there in such a short amount of time without me realising meant that they have enough influence within Nimbasa or even within the whole of Unova to do it without facing repercussions. They also knew that I had a hydreigon even before I revealed him when that shouldn't be the case, and this information came from someone else, their uncle. Now that I think about it, despite the intense battle we had, none of their pokemon were fighting to kill, and that applied to the foul-mouthed hot-headed fool too.

Big influential family in Unova that had been trying to track me for months, has a vested interest in me and does not want me dead, that could only mean-

Oh come on. This fight could totally be avoided right from the start.

"Whose stupid idea is this? My old man or yours?"

The smile on the woman's face grew even wider, a genuine smile that I could tell was one from her heart.

"He was upset that you did not come home to at least pay him a visit after so long. Don't let him know that I told you, but he was sulking about it. Anyway, he misses you, so he ordered us to "drag his ass back here at all costs". His words, not mine. Things happened along the way and one thing led to another and here we are! Those three there wanted to give you a surprise, but as you can see that surprise didn't go too well."

"We spent months trying to figure out where the hell you've been, asshole. Months. I think I am entitled to feel the urge to give you a good punch for all that trouble," the hotheaded one grumbled as he sat on the ground and decided to let his guard down now that the misunderstanding had cleared.

"It was really hard to find any traces of you. Should have expected that, really, since we heard from uncle that you managed to escape from the Indigo Plateau like… wow. Really, how did you do that?" The one with glasses let out a sheepish laugh as he scratched the back of his head. "Uhm, anyway, we might have gotten a little too carried away with this so... Sorry?"

"Will she be alright?" I gestured with a slight jerk of my chin towards the youngest out of the four who was still knocked out cold, suddenly feeling very apologetic for doing that to her. That musharna of hers had already returned to her side without me noticing when.

"She knew what she was getting into when she decided to do it. Trust me, I warned her that trying to poke at an ex Rocket Executive like that was definitely a terrible idea," the woman dismissed my concerns with a flippant wave of her hand. "Although, I admit that we had still grossly underestimated your strength despite uncle's warnings, that is our oversight."

"Next time, please, do not attempt something like this ever again," I sighed and tiredly dragged a palm across my face and let out a mental sigh of relief. At least nobody died, I hope. Still not too sure about what happened to the men in the bus earlier after I sent it crashing.

"Jayce. Jayce Dandolos," I introduced myself as I signalled for my team to stand down, knowing that they are definitely not our enemies.

"Lexus Dandolos. Just call me Lex," the hothead grunted as he recalled his pangoro back into its pokeball to prevent the poison that drapion injected into it from running its course any further. "I'm saying this upfront, we are going to have a rematch."

"Sorry pal, but you are never going to win," I pointed out the obvious, inciting a round of laughter from my pokemon because we know it's true. Lexus's face started to flush a bright red in embarrassment.

"Screw you."

The one with glasses walked up to me and offered his hand, which I shook.

"Mikhail Dandolos. In public, my side of the family goes by the family name of Sawyer."

"You are not a pokemon trainer at all, aren't you?"

"Nope, a law student. Officially, at least," Mikhail affirmed my suspicions with a knowing smile. "Doesn't make me any less nasty in a fight though, or at least that was what I thought until we fought your ninetales. Now I have to think about new countermeasures when I get back, just in case I come across a similar opponent in the future."

"She's not your average ninetales," I agreed as ninetales playfully nudged her head against my thigh as thanks for the praise, the paralysis from arbok's Glare finally worn off. I pointed at the still unconscious girl.

"And her?"

"Amelia Dandolos. Like my side of her family, her side of the family goes by another name in public. To the public, she's known as Amelia Rees. She has been looking forward to seeing you, although I am sure that is not how she expected her first meeting with you to go."

"I will apologise to her later."

"Don't worry too much, Amelia's not one to hold a grudge against family," the woman around my age laughed as she came closer to stand in front of me and introduced herself.

"Leticia Dandolos, you can call me Let for short if you want to. You are every bit that uncle described you to be, Jayce."

"Not too much about the murderous side of me, I hope," I replied dryly, inciting laughs from them once more. Leticia took my hands in hers as she welcomed me with a smile as bright as the setting sun overhead.

"Welcome back, cousin. Welcome home."


Name: Jayce Dandolos

Age: 22

Pokemon Team:

1. Ninetales, female

2. Exeggutor, male

3. Weavile, male

4. Honchkrow, female

5. Umbreon, male

6. Hydreigon, male

7. Drapion, female

8. Zoroark, male

9. Bisharp, male

10. Shiftry, male

11. Porygon-Z, (Nosy), genderless

12. Greninja, male

13. Spiritomb, male

Name: Leticia Dandolos

Age: 20

Pokemon Team:

1. Venemoth

2. Arbok

3. Scolipede

4. Roserade

5. Amoonguss

6. Weezing

7. Stoutland

Name: Lexus Dandolos

Age: 17

Pokemon Team:

1. Incineroar

2. Scrafty

3. Pangoro

Name: Mikhail Dandolos (Mikhail Sawyer)

Age: 17

Pokemon Team:

1. Whimsicott

2. Lilligant

3. Tangrowth

4. Simisage

Name: Amelia Dandolos (Amelia Rees)

Age: 14

Pokemon Team:

1. Musharna

2. Gothitelle