CHAPTER 152

Cecelia and I clapped as Denzel finished off his opponent. They'd been good— another four-badger, but this time, he hadn't been caught off-guard like with that Smeargle team and he only lost one Pokemon— his Sylveon— to a fierce Durant. Steel type attacks seemingly got through his armor like a knife through butter, so I had finally figured out a way to counter it— not that I had any steel type attacks. Denzel got to use Milotic extensively. The water type was getting more and more used to moving around in his new snake-like form. He was having more fun than I'd ever seen him have as a Feebas.

It would be a while until Denzel came here since he usually spent a lot of time talking to reporters. Mira's battle was in a few hours, but the entire group opted to have another meeting before then in the Center to discuss what we'd learn and our next moves. Then, I would need to start researching Harry Rodriguez extensively. Inch. By. Inch.

I was a lot of things, but I was not stupid. At my current skill level, Harry was better than me. He was extremely quick on his feet, but his Pokemon were something else. That Torterra was the worse of all. None of my Pokemon I currently had except Sunshine would deal that much damage to the hulking grass type. I needed to prepare days in advance if I was going to win. Of course, I was also going to prepare for my other battles. Knowing moves and fighting styles would probably expedite the whole process so I could have more time to research Harry.

He was just as guilty as whoever was running this scheme. He would pay for what he'd done to Pauline.

—

"Step one," Denzel started as we all stared at him. He was always the leader in these conversations. "Do you have the number for this Luca Antonovich kid?"

Only Louis nodded.

"Okay, so we can at least contact him again without meeting in the middle of the night. Second, Grace, have you thought about contacting the Poketch Company for help? They know you're smart. If you tell them that you feel like something is going on and explain, I'm sure they'll send someone to check, right?"

"Yeah… I'll call Melody," I said. "I wanted to wait until we had definite proof, but just asking for help can't hurt."

"Third. This Lisa Hunter. Do we know where she is now?"

"Pfft, there are so many Hunters that it'd be impossible to find all of 'em," Mira groaned. "The only thing that's guaranteed is that she works for her family, so she must be here. Probably sleeps in that giant mansion if I had to guess. Want to break in?"

"We are not breaking into a thousand-year-old mansion!" Maeve exclaimed.

"You're no fun."

"The truth is, I asked around about Harry, but when you texted us about the Hunters, I asked around about them too. The questions about Harry came up blank. He's just a trainer. Nothing special, really. But the Hunters? They're reclusive to the point that most of them never leave their Arceus damned property. The kids are all homeschooled too."

"I guess that means that Isaac always went to see her and not the opposite," Cecilia muttered.

"I mean, from the way we got the story what happened was pretty obvious, right? Lisa Hunter was forced to break up with that Isaac guy by her family. It was out of the blue, and the relationship seemed to be going well."

"Could have been going well from the grandparents' perspective while the opposite was true," Mira shrugged.

"Fair enough, but if I had to bet, I'd be willing to say that I'm right."

"How?" Denzel asked.

I paused and felt my lips twitch upward.

"My gut."

—

Mira had gone off to her battle, but unfortunately and despite her incessant complaints, I wasn't going to come to watch. Louis had texted Luca, asking for him to look deeper into the Hunters if he could. We couldn't infiltrate their home and neither could Haunter because he just couldn't behave or Froslass because of the cold. They'd be found out instantly.

His Cutiefly, however? Those were another story. He had said that he'd think about it and that he was assessing the risks. I couldn't blame him.

"Harry Rodriguez," I muttered as I lazed on Angel's vine-bed. "I will know you inside and out."

Thanks to his gym battle with Roark being recent, I actually had access to his team as it was now. He had used Torterra and Pelipper extensively during that battle, but Luxray and Crobat hadn't seen much use, so I would have to wait to analyze them. As it stood, Harry's strategy was just to roll over everything with his Torterra, and when that didn't work, he actually panicked quite a bit. Nothing that would be debilitating of course, but when his starter was out of the fight, he'd start to slip and make mistakes.

I sighed. Taking down that Torterra would be incredibly hard, but I could trap it, maybe. Slow it down and keep it distracted while I focus on the other Pokemon. Torterra would be coming out first. That, I was sure of. His second was a mystery, and I'd only be able to figure it out when I learned more about how he battled in doubles instead of singles. If it was Crobat… from the little footage there was of the flying type, I knew he'd be able to overwhelm Princess with speed. And he was also a poison type that would easily beat her if it got too close. She would have been extremely useful for Torterra, but I couldn't risk it. Plus, something about its face just freaked me out. It was better than Golbat's gaping maw, but I couldn't help but feel slightly anxious at the sight of it.

Angel would have to do the heavy lifting again, it seemed. If it was Pelipper, then Honey would be the choice. Even if Torterra was a ground type, Pelipper wasn't fast enough to outrun Electric Swift. If I could rush it down with that attack and a few Thunderbolts, then we would trade one-for-one.

Plus, I could think of quite a few ways to bypass Earthquake.

If it was Luxray, then I'd have to use Sweetheart. As young as she was, she was still incredibly powerful and her Stomping Tantrum would be able to stop it from getting too close.

I had counters for everything.

Except that damned Torterra.

And the solution was just a single promise away. If Mars was still after me as Sunshine believed, then it was only a matter of time anyway, right? I'd have to confront Team Galactic eventually, even if I hated to think about it. The thought alone made me shiver in fear.

I bit my lip and Tangrowth hugged me with his vines.

Maybe I could, I thought.

No. I…

Denial was too sweet of a drug. If push came to shove and our lives were on the line, then I would have no choice. Right now, this was still small. I would talk to him about it soon to see if some sort of agreement could be reached.

I had a list of moves for Torterra and Pelipper, so now all I could do was call Melody and tell her what was going on. We hadn't really talked these last three days apart from the occasional text to micromanage my behavior during interviews. The Poketch Company seemed to think I was getting better at them, but that I could still use some tact. I texted her, asking her to speak if she was free.

She wasn't free, but since her primary job was to be my liaison, I apparently took priority. It was a funny feeling, to be the Poketch Company's priority. It was a testament of the potential they saw in me.

"Good afternoon, Grace. To what do I owe the pleasure?" Melody's smooth voice rang out.

"Hi. I'll cut to the chase. Did you hear about what happened to my friend Pauline? The two resignations?"

"Ah, yes we did," she said. "Let me guess, you find those suspicious and want us to step in?"

"Yeah. Well, not step in, but investigate or something and see if this thing is legit or not."

"I wish I could do more, Grace, I really do. We have people from the company looking into it to make sure you're being treated fairly since you're under our umbrella," Melody sighed. "But that's the most that I can do. The hype about the theory's dying down. No one else has resigned since and even though it was suspicious, the evidence is circumstantial at best—"

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"It's not circumstantial! Hear me out. The Hunters—"

I stopped, my throat suddenly dry. She was right. I had nothing concrete. Just theories. I had been wrong about the wave of resignations. Only one person had dropped out since, so her information was outdated, but she was on the opposite side of the bracket and had nothing to do with Harry.

"A good company would have delayed the match, but as it turns out, this is how they do things. We read the fine print. For what it's worth, I do believe there's been some foul play, but I'm just one woman. The Poketch Company is a machine. I don't make the decisions, and when decisions are taken, they are slow," she said. "I'm sorry. Even if you lose to Rodriguez, you'll have made the top fifty, so the company will be pleased—"

"I won't lose," I interrupted.

She paused. "Very well. I wish you the best of luck. I don't know much about battling, but I can tell that he was good."

"You watched?"

"I told you I was suspicious, didn't I?" She chuckled. "One word of advice, Grace. Keep your head down and don't try to investigate. You're just a kid— wait, I know how trainers hate it when we say that, hold on let me rephrase. You should just focus on yourself for now. The Hunters… are a lot more influential than most would think."

"I know they run the place," I frowned. "What else do you know? How do you know?"

"I'm from Solaceon, Grace," she sighed. "Their influence never really leaves you, even when you move."

"Influence?" I gulped.

"A metaphorical way of speaking," she reassured me. "What I meant to say is, don't try to be a hero and trespass. They don't take too kindly to that, and it'll be illegal, so it would reflect badly on us. The Hunters are a very private family."

Damn it, it was like she'd guessed that we wanted to investigate. I didn't let my mask slip and simply agreed to her suggestion. Something about this entire town was rotten. I hated it the more I stayed here. The people were nice, but Arceus, I couldn't shake that anxious feeling that had overtaken me since yesterday. It was like something pressing on my chest and never relenting.

After hanging up, I hugged my knees and Angel softly pet my head.

"I won't stop," I said. "Justice needs to be served."

—

After Mira handily won her battle, Luca sent Louis a message telling him that he was in. Tonight, he would send his Cutiefly to find Lisa Hunter and see if she ever left the Arceus damned mansion. Since she had almost no online presence, there were scant pictures of her online, but during dinner, Justin proposed an idea that had somehow slipped through all of our minds.

"Why not contact that Isaac fellow in Sunyshore? Do we know his last name?"

"Holy shit, that's true," Denzel said, slapping a fist against his palm. "We do have his last name. It's uh… what was it?"

"Frazier," Cecilia said.

"If we can contact him, we can figure out what ended his relationship with the Hunters and potentially get more insight on their family, no?"

"Yeah, but will he even answer? We'd be strangers asking him about his personal life," Maeve said.

"Should we pretend to be someone else? The cops?" Mira asked in an amused tone.

"That would probably fail spectacularly," I sighed. "I think it might pay off to just be honest."

"Agreed," Pauline said. "No games. Just be straight up and try to convince him."

Denzel nodded, and it only took him five minutes to find and shoot Isaac a message on social media. Cecilia and Louis helped him workshop it to appear as polite and easygoing as possible to not pressure the man, and it surprisingly only took him twenty minutes to answer back. When we heard the buzz on Denzel phone— a buzz that I had mistaken for Combee— we all scrambled to check what was written, crowding around him.

"Chill out guys," he groaned. "He says… 'are you guys tricking me… I promise I haven't told anyone anything.'"

"Arceus, what did they do to this guy?" Maeve shivered.

"Tell him that we can call him if he wants. The entire group, to show that we're not fake," I said. "I don't know much about the Hunters, but I doubt that they'd have done it like this."

Denzel agreed and sent the message, texting him his number in the process. Isaac instantly replied, saying to wait five minutes for him to go back to his dorm room. We all flinched when we saw the call pop up.

Isaac immediately spoke up.

"Who are you people? How do you know about me and Lisa?!"

"Hello Isaac. We're… a group of trainers looking into the Hunter family," Denzel said, taking the lead. He stared at me and I gave him a firm nod. Tell the truth. "We heard about you and her through your grandparents."

"Damn it… they weren't supposed to tell anyone. I'm gonna have to call them…"

"Were you threatened in any way?" He continued.

"I was threatened legally, but that was it. Normally I would hide this, but you already know too much. Just leave me alone after alright? I already have a lot on my plate. And do not tell anyone about this. It's not like the cops here would do anything anyway. The Hunters run that too."

"Sure thing," Denzel said.

"Lisa and I dated one and a half years ago during the summer, and long story short, she broke up with me in tears. We were doing really good, but her family forced her to cut me off. I wasn't good enough for them."

"What constitutes 'good enough'? I interjected.

Hearing my voice for the first time, he hesitated. "It was just too much. I wanted to join the family business and be a breeder… to be honest, I still want to be a breeder. It was like a cult in there. They call the family leader the Elder, and he lives on the top floor of the mansion and runs everything in Solaceon. Everything. I never even saw him. They wanted me to do all this weird stuff… pledge my loyalty, leave my home and never speak to my grandparents again, work without getting paid. It was too much. I said no, and they forced Lisa to break up with me. They were the ones who wanted to marry us ASAP. I'm not dumb enough to propose to a girl I've been dating for a few months, but I had to pretend to be on board to my grandparents."

This was it. Definitive proof that the Hunters were shady, but it wasn't proof of involvement in tournament rigging.

"Is that it? I hate talking about this."

"Wait!" Louis sprung up.

"There's another one of you? Just how many people are in the room?!"

"Uh, eight people," Denzel said. Isaac groaned. "Louis?"

"You say this family is like a cult," Louis started. "Is there any… brainwashing going on?"

"No. They're just blindingly loyal to the family head," he denied. "They've been doing this for a thousand years. The Hunters are an institution. They've always been there. People in Solaceon can't imagine their lives without 'em, and it's even worse for the people in the family. You can't free any of them from that influence. I tried with Lisa… I tried to get her to run away to Sunyshore with me. She loved me— she really did— but looked at me like I was insane. I'll never forget what she told me that day."

"I'm sorry," I winced. "One last thing, if it might not be too much to ask?"

"What is it?"

"Do you have a picture of her?"

The call ended soon after that. It took a little bit of convincing, but Isaac sent us a picture of Lisa Hunter, and we relayed it to Luca so his Cutiefly knew what to look for, but he wasn't going to go and check right away. Luca was going to do something else tonight. The goal of the operation was to constantly be on Harry Rodriguez's tail to see if he ever made contact with any organizers from BattleZone or a Hunter. His next battle was tomorrow, and I sure as hell was going to watch it. We eagerly waited for a few hours to check if Luca had any information for us, but he kept telling Louis to stop pestering him when he was working. Eventually, people filtered out when we weren't getting any news. No new resignations. No funny business. No movement. When Harry got active again tomorrow, we'd probably learn more.

I decided to look up my next opponent before going to bed.

Will Bowman was a water type specialist, which caused me to have an immediate reaction and want to send out Electabuzz and Tangrowth against him.

Of course, now that I was researching my opponents, I quickly figured out that that would have been a terrible idea. Why? Two reasons. First, he owned a Vaporeon, a Beartic, a Wugtrio, an Azumarill, a Basculin and a Frillish. Beartic and Wugtrio both knew ground type moves to counter electric types. I felt bad that Honey wasn't seeing much use so far, but it looked like he'd have to be saved in case something went wrong with my actual plan, which was to send out Angel and Buddy.

I grinned. It looked like people not knowing that Buddy had Water Absorb was going to be dividends during this battle. Since Will Bowman had six Pokemon, I wasn't sure which one was going to be left behind, but I was one hundred percent sure that he was going to have either Beartic or Wugtrio. His main strategy tended to be this: have his Vaporeon set up a Rain Dance to flood the terrain and increase the power of his water moves, along with allowing his Basculin to actually travel through the whole field. Funnily enough, his Beartic actually had Swift Swim, which would synergize with that strategy as well. The three most likely Pokemon that he'd use were Vaporeon, which was instrumental to his strategy— along with Beartic and Basculin.

Now who would be last? Frillish was probably out of the picture. She was his weakest teammate who was held behind by not having evolved. That left Azumarill and Wugtrio. They were both physical attackers, but Wugtrio specialized in speed and Azumarill in slow and steady power. Beartic and Basculin were already quick… if I had to gamble, I guessed that Azumarill would be fourth. Wugtrio would mean that Bowman's team would be too frail to resist Angel's vines, but even if I was wrong, I figured that it wouldn't matter very much. My team wouldn't change regardless. Tangrowth, Jellicent, Electabuzz and Togetic were the best possible choice.

"Come to bed."

I turned toward Cece, who was lying down under the covers. She pulled out her arm and caressed my back.

"I'm almost done, I think," I smiled. "Hold on a sec."

The main strategy here would be to destroy— not destroy— take down that Vaporeon before the water from Rain Dance built up enough for Bowman's team to have any effect. The quicker the water type went down, the faster the Rain Dance would stop. I wondered what the interaction between Sunny Day and Rain Dance was, but if I had to guess, Vaporeon's experience with the move meant that it would overpower Angel. It was even better than Gardenia's Lombre. Vaporeon was bulky, but it was slow. The most skilled ones could apparently liquefy their bodies, but Will Bowman's wasn't that good yet. It was light enough for Angel to pick up. If he got in range for a Bind, Vaporeon, would fall.

And with that, his entire strategy would fall apart. Without Vaporeon, Angel could quickly replace the rain with Sunny Day and cripple his water type attacks.

Wait… actually, it was really obvious who he would start with now. Angel was beginning to get a reputation as my strongest, and I'd started with him twice in a row. Bowman would be right to assume that I would do it again, so that meant that Beartic would accompany Vaporeon as his first two.

Oh well, Jellicent would be able to help out and distract it while Angel took care of Vaporeon for us.

I closed my computer and got into the bed. Cece wrapped me into a tight hug and I felt her body heat permeate through me.

I loved her.

—

I woke up to a frantic knock. I squinted, noticing that it was still dark out. Cecilia groaned.

"What time is it?"

I grabbed my phone on my bedside table and had to blink a few times to read the contents. Four in the morning.

"It's 4 am. I'll go get it," I whispered.

"Do you have to? Wait, you do have to, it's probably important."

I yawned and shuffled out of bed. I almost forgot to release Princess before opening the door, which could have been a fatal mistake. Luckily, it was just Denzel knocking. I was sure I would have recognized his knock if I hadn't been tired as hell.

"Yeah? Figure something out?" I asked.

"Luca sent Louis a message. Harry Rodriguez is on the move."