[Part 1]
With a deep, tired sigh, Taro gently put his coffee mug to the side, patiently cleared the surface in front of him of any important and classified documents and then, without missing a beat, forcefully slammed his own forehead into the desk. nearly causing it to jump in place, letting out a loud groan.
Then, after a few motionless seconds, detective detached his skull from the table, and looked back at Kagetora, who was watching him with mild, if mundane, amusement.
"I'm sorry, could you repeat that one more time?" Taro winced.
"Ah, sure. Due to this night's attack on our Honnoji data centre, the League is pulling us as extra muscle to the Tedorigawa lab," his current boss replied with a shrug, "And I don't mean just me. The entire taskforce was called back there, and they even 'requested' that you go as well"
"I see!" Taro inhaled sharply, desperately trying not to scream out of sheer frustration.
Pinpointing the exact location of Calamity (and even more so of Ghost) was an extremely difficult task. The first thing Taro made sure to do was convincing Kagetora to station extra rangers in Gifu and Fukui prefectures - it stood to reason that the 101s would've tried to avoid the city of Nagoya, and fled to the north-east through the wilderness instead. There was no easy choice between the snowy mountains and the relatively open coastline, though Taro's money was on the former. And yet, several days since, the rangers still did not report any signs of a Goodra passing their posts. At this point, they should've saw the signs of Calamity even if it was traveling at half the normal speed.
And just as Taro was counting seconds for any kind of update while second-doubting his own deductions, the Honnoji facility in Kyoto had been wiped out.
Over a hundred people dead overnight. According to the reports, most of them were caught completely unawares, and there were little to no signs of struggle across the entire facility. The commonality among the victims was a wound at the back of the skull, a hole roughly the size of a big coin, burrowing straight into the brain and pulverising it on impact, with no signs of gunpowder, no burn marks, and no traces of energy. Which probably meant this was a Normal, Fighting, or Dark type move. Probably killed its victim on the spot, without them ever realising what happened.
Except for one, that is. The director of the facility, Tarano Jubei, was found in his trashed office, brutally beaten to death. Which would've pointed to some sort of a personal motive, except whoever done the deed also made sure to break into the facility's vault and steal the 101 contained there, despite that 101, according to the reports, being caught in the wild. Judging by the damage to the containment area, it was NOT the case of that 101 escaping on its own.
The moment Taro heard about this attack, he knew it was bad news. This did not look like the handiwork of Team Brute - too ninja for them - and certainly not Calamity, the cryptid was almost artistic in its violence. It could've been the Ghost, as he still knew nothing of its modus operandi, but his gut told him otherwise.
"Okay, I get that the attack was bad. Why pull us though?"
"Hmm… Well, let's just say that Tedorigawa facility is a place for conditioning 101s. And tomorrow, Fujiwara Tomohito is scheduled to arrive there to work with several 101s that were contained since his last visit to the islands. He's world's top specialist on the matter, so the League wants all hands on deck to guarantee his safety"
Ah. Now Taro understood. Given how it would only take some hours on a train to get from Kyoto to Ishikawa, where that facility was located, the League did not take any chances with their golden goose, even if that put the rest of the islands in peril. Pricks.
Well, at the very least, Ishikawa was just to north-east from Gifu and Fukui, so they wouldn't have that hard of a time responding to the rangers.
"Let's get this over with."
[Part 2]
"Tedorigawa facility is one of nine responsible for such surgeries. Now, hitting every single one of them might be a fool's errand, since they are located all over the globe. But we might not have to. See, according to our sources, Fujiwara Tomohito is arriving to this branch tomorrow."
Explaining this all through a radio might've been difficult, but Harunobu did not want to risk meeting Red Eyes face to face. At least not until he knew it wouldn't try to kill him - leaving Team Brute without a leader was the best possible way to let it fall into Suwa Shiro's hands, and devolve into a cult of bushido.
"WHO IS TOMOHITO?"
"He's a neurosurgeon, specialising in Pokemon, and roughly once a month, he travels from his private island to one of the nine facilities, after which there's an influx of new 101s in the League ranks. In other words, he's the one performing lobotomies on 101s"
"SO, JUST A PAWN. KILLING HIM WILL NOT END THIS"
"Oh, he's not just a pawn. See, he's not a PART of the League, merely employed by them, for the past sixty years. And as he does not trust them in the slightest, he never shared any of his research, and refused to take any students too. Now, I'm pretty sure that the League tried to train substitutes, but seeing as he's still enjoying his luxurious life on their payroll, they were not successful. They've even got him some piece of experimental technology meant to prolong his life just a couple of years ago"
"WHICH MEANS KILLING HIM WILL SLOW THEM DOWN"
"Yeah. Now, I'm not saying it would stop them altogether, but if we manage to kill Tomohito, and dispose of any shreds of his research, the League would be back to square one in terms of their control over 101s, stuck with just the ones they already have and no readily available method of replenishing their numbers."
Indeed, even their second best option - the calming signal implant - was currently out of question, until the reason behind GyaraDocks malfunction was actually unearthed. And good luck with that, the League is still busy trying to take back the control over lake Biwa.
"Of course, him being such an important figure means they won't skimp on the security. Especially since, according to our info, something wiped out one of their facilities in Kyoto last night."
"NOT A PROBLEM."
"It could be. Which is why I want to discuss our plan to deal with-"
"YOU WILL STAY OUT OF THIS. WE WILL DEAL WITH TOMOHITO AND THIS FACILITY"
"Wait, you can't possibly expect to do this with just the two of-"
"IF ANY OF YOUR MEN ARE ON THE SCENE, THEY WILL DIE. THEN WE WILL COME FOR YOU. STAY OUT OF THIS."
"…" Harunobu sighed. Yeah, Red Eyes certainly did not trust him in the slightest. But losing it to the League's security over this distrust still was less than ideal. For all he knew, he was sending it out there as a gift to the bastards. No, he needed to swallow his pride, and at least try to help - if these two 101s were captured, but managed to deal a major enough blow to the League, this situation still could be an overall win for his cause. "Fine, my people will stay away from the facility. However, I've got plenty of information on it that I could share with you."
"I AM LISTENING."
[Part 3]
Inabayama looked closely at her girlfriend, who was still busy talking with Tiger about some thing or the other. They might have started those human language lessons, but that alpha-beta thing with short sounds did not really translate to understanding most of the human's words. Not yet, at least.
To be honest, the dragon did not like the notion of working with a human, especially with a slippery one like Tiger. It felt like he KNEW that he'd be toast if they ever met, so he used these long-range radio thingies instead. And as good as Inabayama was at reading others, she was NOT good at reading someone over a long-range radio thingie. Can't blame the human for not wanting to be toast, but she COULD blame him for being too slippery to trust.
It didn't have to make perfect sense.
Still, Inabayama felt guilty. Just before this talk with Tiger, they discussed the possibility of working with these humans. Seemed like Hiei wanted to use them either as distraction, or cannon fodder. Meanwhile, the dragon… She just couldn't. Working alongside humans just felt… Wrong?.. Like she would not be able to concentrate on their task, and instead would spend most of her time on the lookout for possible betrayals.
So, Hiei actually conceded.
Her girlfriend agreed not to accept any direct help from the humans, despite it possibly saving her some precious effort and energy.
And now Inabayama felt guilty about it.
"Okay, we're done. Tiger will drop some information about the facility roughly fifteen minutes to the north," at this, Gardevoir suddenly turned to her, "Are you alright?"
"I… Yeah. Just a bit tired. Let's go!" she smiled.