CHAPTER 156 - Break-in

It was the dead of night.

The tournament building wasn’t exactly a paragon of security. It had been hastily built next to the Hunters’ property to host the event, and it looked more like an overgrown camping cabin than anything else. Relatively small and only containing a few rooms. A few windows, a rackety wooden door, but most important of all, absolutely no security or cameras. According to Luca, a supervisor was supposed to stand guard the whole night, but they tended to be lazy with their shifts by going home early. It was a perfect place to break into, but the problem was that we had to do it and leave no traces. We were actually breaking the law here, and if I was found out, it’d put my entire relationship with the Poketch Company in jeopardy.

And yet, here I was.

The plan was simple. Have all of our flying types flying discreetly in the sky and warn us of anyone approaching through the road or otherwise. There was only one lonely road to keep track of, so that’d be easy. Staravia, Talonflame and Magnezone were on top of things, and they weren’t easy to spot at night. Maeve and Justin were staying outside to stall if someone came, but we’d use the advanced warning to bail out as quick as possible, since they’d send us a text about it. Next up, we had Mira’s Haunter, who easily slipped through the walls of the building to let us know if anyone was inside. Surprisingly, he was behaving rather well. I supposed that playing catch was working wonders with him.

Somehow.

Luca’s Cutiefly had a different job than usual tonight. Instead of scanning for danger like usual, they were sticking closer by the Hunters’ mansion— not too close. We could see their soft lights shining in the sky. Their goal was to signal immediately if anyone ever got out of that mansion. Maeve and Justin would see it, text us, and we’d run away.

“Can your Haunter be any slower?” Luca hissed.

“Let him be.”

“We can’t afford to waste time! Fucking call him over!”

Mira groaned in frustration. “Haunty! What are you doing in here? Don’t forget, no poison.”

The door slowly slid open, revealing the inside of the building. It was pitch black. Denzel took a tentative step forward, but Haunter reappeared in front of him and screamed. He yelled his guts out and would have fallen over if Louis hadn’t caught him. Haunter cackled and pulled out his tongue.

“People could have heard that for miles,” Cecilia winced. “We need to hurry.”

“This is why it should have been that Arceus damned Froslass,” Luca complained.

“She can’t control the cold yet, this is the best that we had,” I said. “Let’s go.”

Haunter’s hand became more gaseous, and the key dropped inside of Mira’s hand. Pauline quickly found a light switch and turned it on.

“Good, good. No poison on the floors,” Mira smiled, recalling Haunter. “Now keep that Slowking of yours sharp and close the door.”

Slowking sagely nodded, and the pink-haired girl winced. Right, she was a lot more used to telepathy than I was. Slowking was our last line of defense. He’d use Hypnosis on any people that made it through, and then we would run away.

“Okay everyone, five minutes maximum. Split up, find wherever those Arceus damned schedules are, and we’re out. Pauline, I want you to turn off the lights. People from the outside can see if the lights in the lobby are on, so just keep it to singular rooms for now. There ain’t that much to look through, so be quick,” Luca ordered.

“Don’t boss me around,” Pauline said with her arms crossed. He rolled his eyes and ignored her.

“This feels too easy…” I muttered. “Too smooth.”

“Well stop complaining and get working,” he snapped. “Hop the counter and go through these drawers. Cecilia, help her out. Denzel, Louis, you’re with me. Justin keep an eye out, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”

“What about me?!” Mira asked.

“There’s an annex room in the back. Go through there and see if you find anything suspicious. I’ll look in the two offices.”

“Sure thing! Oh, right, here’s Kadabra for you guys!” She said, looking at us. Kadabra appeared in a flash of red behind the counter and offered a stare that held little to no respect.

I jumped over the counter and helped Cecilia up, then I started to sift through these drawers. We had to be careful about it too, because we had to leave everything in the correct position and order we’d first seen it in. Thankfully, we had Slowking and Mira’s Kadabra to count on for that. Their incredible memories would serve us perfectly, and they seemed to get along… relatively fine, at least.

“Files… files… more files,” I groaned. “This one’s no good. What about yours?”

“Schedules, but not for the supervisors on duty here. They’re for the tournament brackets,” she sighed. “A bunch of office supplies… pencils, calculators… nothing that we’re looking for.”

I yelped when every single drawer opened and Kadabra levitated hundreds of pieces of paper, sorting through them in a flash. After around five seconds, he placed them back in the exact position they were in, leaving us with a single paper. Cecilia hesitantly grabbed it.

“This is it. This is the schedule,” she said, breathing a sigh of relief. “Pauline, come here! What time did you go lodge your complaint again?”

“Seven-thirty-ish,” she said.

“Ish? This is not the time for approximations!” I said.

“No ish! Just seven thirty.”

Cecilia traced her finger on the paper. “We’ve got him. Seven-thirty, that’s… Jerry Heo.”

“We’ve got his name, now we can find his picture with enough dedication. Then, we find him. Let’s leave. I’ll go find Mira, you guys go find Luca,” I said.

I jumped over the counter again and jogged to the annex room. The smell of cardboard invaded my nostrils as I stepped inside of the room. I saw Mira look through some papers through the pallet racking. Instead of the usual pouting I had come to expect, she actually looked like she was taking this seriously. Up until now, I believed that she still took this as a game, but I was glad that the gravity of the situation had apparently sunk in for her. Kirlia stood by her side with her arms crossed, and they were mid-conversation.

“...I mean, it’s kind of nice that this happened. It’s a practice run for later. If the rumors about Veilstone are true, I’m going to have to do some snooping— Grace! What’s up?”

“We found what we were looking for. Can Kirlia put everything back into place?”

“Yup. Go ahead,” she tapped her Kirlia’s head.

The psychic type huffed and the papers all flew out of Mira’s hand, traveling to their respective boxes.

“Anything interesting?” I asked.

“Information on past tourneys mostly. I wonder why they brought all of this here instead of keeping it in their permanent HQ.”

“Maybe it just helps to have all of their previous info on hand. Let’s go—”

Cecilia burst through the door. “Bad news! Someone’s exited the mansion and another person is walking down the road. We need to leave, we’re going through the fields! Luca’s Cutiefly are back and it seems bad.”

I grabbed Mira’s wrist and dragged her back inside of the lobby. We were almost all out of the door before Luca stopped.

“I’m staying.”

My face fell. “What?”

“Are you insane?” Denzel hissed. “We—”

“I’m staying. They’re meeting in this Arceus damned office instead of the mansion for some reason and I won’t let the opportunity slip by. You guys leave. Go. Go! I’ll send you anything I get via text.”

I couldn’t even comprehend what happened before we were out of the building and running through Solaceon’s field, away from the Hunters’ property. I didn’t know how long we ran for, but when we stopped, we were all back at the Pokemon Center.

All of us except Luca.

——

Being poor when you had been rich in the past was hard.

Luca Antonovich had grown up in Hotel Grand Lake that linked Pastoria, Sunyshore and Veilstone together. In fact, his parents ran the place.

He hadn’t seen them in two years.

They’d kicked him out at fifteen for being a failure and he couldn’t exactly blame them. Luca was sure that if he hadn’t done anything with his life and loafed around— akin to a Slaking— they would have let him stick around. He would have been that embarrassing family member that everyone had. The one that had never done anything with his life, but was fun to have around. He’d been worse than that. Constantly bringing shame to his family, berating teachers when he failed, constantly getting into fights with the other guests’ kids, stealing from guests… and it had all culminated to that day when he’d set fire to a building.

All for attention.

He was sure that his little brother had completely replaced him by now. He wasn’t needed anymore.

Luca stopped himself from laughing. How incredible that he would think back to his old life in such a precarious position? He held his breath and sat completely still in a corner of the dark annex. His Cuties— his oldest companions that he’d caught soon after leaving home— stood on his left shoulder. He motioned to them to go forward and signal to him whenever anyone stepped inside of the building.

One singular question rang through his mind. One, why have the meeting here? Harry had been let in the mansion, so it couldn’t have been him. The risks involved in meeting in the tournament building were so immense… no… no they weren’t. Luca was sure that even if they had their eyes on them, no one ever thought they’d be brazen enough to break in. He froze when his two Cutiefly began to fly in unison, spelling out letters. It was incredible how fast the two of them could be.

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They are here. One woman, one man. No Pokemon or Pokeballs.

He breathed out a sigh of relief. At least if he got caught, he’d be able to run away. His Cutiefly weren’t the best at fighting, but they were still Pokemon.

They are coming.

Luca sank deeper into the annex and ducked under a large cardboard box. The industrial lights came on with a woosh, and steps reverberated through the room. Luca considered grabbing his phone now and texting everything he heard live, but he knew he’d mess up if he did. Somehow, he would drop it, or he’d accidentally get it off silent. He was a fuck-up, and he knew better than to give himself the opportunity to make a mistake.

“...you’ll have a great time here. Solaceon’s fresh air is going to be great for your wife. She’s going to give birth to very healthy kids,” a woman said. She sounded young, but Luca wasn’t about to peek out to see who she was.

“I’m sure, I’m sure,” the man said. “I hope you’ll take care of her when I have to leave though. You know how work is.”

“Come on, Jerry! You should just quit your job after the tournament. If you right the ship and prove yourself useful, I’m sure that the Elder would be willing to make an exception and take you in.”

Jerry.

Jerry Heo.

Holy fuck. Luca bit down on his tongue and sucked in air through the gap in his teeth. He heard the soothing Buzz of his Cutiefly and calmed down. If he could record this conversation and give it to the press… Luca bit the bullet and grabbed his phone to start recording.

“So you’re done with buttering me up with small talk, eh? I don’t want to join your family.” Jerry dryly said. “Why couldn’t we meet in your damned mansion. I hate doing this where I work. You're lucky I was on security tonight, or we wouldn't have been able to meet.”

“The Elder would have disagreed. Where are the files?”

Luca heard some paper rustling. If he had to guess, he was handing her information on Harry’s next opponent. They were still doing some amount of rigging.

“It didn’t disagree for that Harry kid.”

“He!” The woman hissed with barely contained rage. “You will address the Elder as he if you know what’s good for you.”

“Arceus, Lisa. Are you threatening me?”

“It is not a threat,” she said. “He is offended very easily.”

“That was obviously a threat.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Lisa Hunter and Jerry Heo were speaking to each other. This was big. Luca clenched at his heart to try to stop his heart from beating too quickly. For the next ten seconds, nothing was said.

“Okay, I’m sorry,” Jerry audibly gulped. “But did you have to kill Mr. Tyson? Just when we shut down that rigging story, it’s starting back up again. The business is bleeding, Lisa. We were promised big gains, and this is going terribly.”

“I don’t know much about your colleague’s unfortunate suicide, but he was the one that started this whole fucked up situation to begin with. I thought you could keep your people under control—”

“I can’t keep my fucking boss under control!” He snapped. “And don’t pretend you can fool me with this suicide shit! You fucking idiots have no idea what you just did. You’re so used to getting whatever you want that you just snap and go crazy when you don’t! The entire tournament’s in jeopardy now, and all your precious Harry will get is a tainted win. At the end of the day, no one will care, and you don’t want that, don’t you?”

Lisa hesitated, stammering out a few words. “We have nothing to do with his death. And no, we do not want Harry to fail.”

“Then leave things to me and tell your family to stop fucking things up. This is already unsalvageable for BattleZone, but maybe we can save Harry’s image.”

“You can’t just come to Solaceon and tell us what to do, Jerry. The Elder will never take kindly to that.”

“Tell it— tell him that if he keeps ordering hits on employees that aren’t on board with his plan, Harry Rodriguez will sink along with us. And his pals from Veilstone sure as hell won’t like that. Not when they’ve got their hands busy with all the inves—”

“Do not even utter those words, you imbecile! Do not speak of Veilstone.”

“It’s just us here—”

“Shut. Up. If you only called me here to complain about Robert’s unfortunate death, then I believe I have nothing left to say now that I’ve gotten the files.”

“Wait! This is important. I need to hear your next steps. What did Harry and your uncle speak about during their meeting? I know you’re privy to a lot of information, so don’t pretend like you don’t know.”

“That is Hunter only, I’m afraid,” Lisa said.

“How do you expect me to work with you if you keep me in the dark?”

“Your opportunity to be an equal partner passed you by when you let your boss expose our plan by forcing Sally McCree to resign. Fucking hell… he was supposed to be on our side. What do we do now when Harry has to fight other trainers with five badges, hm? Do we just leave it to chance?”

“He’ll make it to the top four, at least! And by the time he has to battle someone at his level, we’ll have figured something out.”

“You better, or we’re throwing BattleZone under the bus,” she said. “We won’t settle for the top four. We want perfection. All of us.”

“Lisa—”

“Shut it. It’s not like you even care, you and your friends here are the ones backstabbing your company and rigging the tournament for petty cash. Just figure something out, or we will. The Hunters don’t take too kindly to being restrained.”

The man groaned. “Fine. Just… stop killing people.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lisa said with sarcasm so dry it could be mistaken for a desert. “Now go.”

“I need to lock up here—”

“Go. I will not say it twice. I’ll lock up for you.”

“You can’t—”

The man stopped and Luca heard him run out of the room. He stopped recording and discreetly placed his phone back into his pocket. He had everything, now he just had to make it out— wait, no! He had to send the video over now! Luca quickly grabbed his phone and—

“There’s a kid here, Lise.”

Luca froze and felt a shiver run down his spine. There was another woman in the annex. Why hadn’t his Cutiefly spotted her?! He quickly scrambled to his feet and started to run, but a blotch of darkness traveled through the floor, blocking his path. From the abyss emerged an Umbreon. The dark type snarled at him, and he hesitantly stepped back. Its fur stood on end and dripped poison so acidic that it formed little pools on the wooden floor.

Lane Hunter snatched his phone from his hands behind him, dropped it on the floor and smashed it with her foot.

“Arceus, today’s been a very bad day,” Lisa sighed.

Where had that Umbreon even been? How had it hidden its trainer?

“D—Draining Kiss!” Luca stammered.

His two Cutiefly darted toward Umbreon, and their needles sharpened. The dark type’s golden circle lit up, and darkness lashed out from the floor as if it had a mind of its own. It was exactly like Shiftry’s. An empty void that looked like it had been edited into the world with a computer program instead of a color. Both of his Cutiefly got hit once, and they quickly fell to the ground.

He was really no good after all. Luca’s shoulders sagged. That’s what he got for not training his Pokemon to battle.

“Just fuckin’ kill me,” he smiled. He was trying to put on a brave face, but he felt like his heart would stop any moment now. He’d never been terrified his entire life. “Make it painless?”

“Anyone else in the building?” Lisa asked.

Lane hummed. “No, I was skulking around the whole time we were here. It’s just him. He was on my tour too. Do we kill him?”

At least they didn’t know the others had been there. He’d be gone soon, but if they could track this Jerry Heo guy… then they’d be able to uncover this just as he had.

“Legendaries, I hate being outside. These emotions make me unable to think properly,” Lisa complained. “Luca Antonovich… an information broker for the tournament. He’s not a League-mandated trainer, so I don’t think people would notice if he was gone. They’d probably think he just left. Still… I don’t feel like I can take a decision on behalf of the Elder. Bring him back home.”

“We were content to let you run around and play your games, you know?” Lane said. “But you had to keep going deeper.”

Luca let out a relieved whimper, but he soon realized that a worse fate than death could possibly be awaiting him in the Hunters’ mansion.

Who knew what that Shiftry would do to him?

——

It was morning now, and Luca still wasn’t back. Nobody had slept.

Something had clearly happened to him. I… I hoped that he was safe somewhere. We tried to keep our spirits up by hoping that he’d been captured or arrested somehow. Maeve had begged to just confess that we had trespassed to the League and hope they’d do something about it, but that wouldn’t work. The League wasn’t exactly an entity that could focus on a single trainer going missing. Hell, Luca hadn’t even been an official trainer, and he had broken the law. He wouldn’t exactly be their top priority even if I called Candice. In fact, they probably wouldn’t even look into it at all. This was more of a local issue.

I bit my lip and sighed. I hadn’t known Luca for long, but it still hurt, damn it. Pauline wasn’t that down in the dumps— she had only spoken to him a few times— but she blamed herself the most.

To be honest, it was partly her fault. And Mira’s. But we all shared some of the blame— even Luca. After all, he’d been the one that had chosen to stay behind. Only Cecilia and Maeve’s hands were clean.

Best case scenario, the League would defer it to the police, and we already knew that the police was worth nothing in this town. One thing about the League bothered me though. Why leave the Hunters to their own devices? They were doing this before Team Galactic was even involved, so the League being too busy focusing on them wouldn’t be a good excuse. I didn’t know much about governing, but would a nation really leave what was basically an independent city-state run by a cult to thrive within its borders instead of enforcing the rules? The mayor was a sham, the city council was a sham, and the people here seemed to think that everything here was normal. It disgusted me.

“What do we do now?” Denzel asked as he looked around the room.

“We could leave. It would hurt Grace with the Poketch Company, but that doesn’t really matter at this point,” Justin sighed.

“Let me think about it,” I hesitantly said.

“Why?” Maeve asked. “Why risk everything?”

“First, it was to avenge Pauline. BattleZone slighted her and I wanted to expose them for it,” I said. “Now, it’s to avenge Luca. We didn’t know him long, but I hadn’t expected— I didn’t expect them to… well, maybe he’s okay...”

I felt a burning urge inside of me. An urge that wanted to make them pay the price. It didn’t have to be me doing it, but if they fell, I would be happy. More than happy. My heart would swell with untold amounts of joy.

“I get it,” Denzel said. “If… if you’re in, I’m in. Pauline is too stubborn to learn, and apparently I’m too stubborn to let you guys be in danger by yourselves.”

“I feel the same way,” Louis nodded. “The children in that cult… they need to be freed. They don’t know they’re being treated as fools.”

“Like I said before, I have my reasons,” Mira said.

“Nothing changes. We use our fame to our advantage and keep fighting as if nothing happened. Today, we will go find Jerry Heo and have a word with him.”

“What if he talks?” Louis asked.

I ignored the violent ideas that flashed in my head. “Listen up. I know this might be shitty of me to say, but we have billionaire friends, don’t we? I’m saying we pay him off to stay quiet.”

“And if he says no to that?” Louis asked again.

“We raise the price until he folds. Men like him like money,” Cecilia anxiously breathed out. “He paid Pauline— a literal billionaire— to stay quiet. His brain only functions in terms of Pokedollars. He won’t refuse.”

It was on, then.

I was ready.

“We need to line everything up. When we’re ready, we’ll talk to the media and expose everything. As morbid as it is, we're going to need more than this to bring them down.”

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