CH15 (245), Aftermath

I went to one of the crates and opened it to take a look at what they were smuggling. I saw a lot of unregistered Pokeballs in stasis placed in rows on foam to prevent them from getting damaged. I tried to lift the foam board and saw that there was another one with Pokeballs underneath it.

Looking at the thickness of the board in my hand and the height of the crate I estimated that a total of 7 boards fit into one crate. If each board had as many Pokeballs as the first two, which was 20, then each crate contained 140 Pokemon that were being illegally smuggled and sold.

I took a look around and saw that there were 6 crates inside the warehouse, so these a**holes had smuggled 840 Pokemon to Rota. I saw that each ball had a little slip beside it with the Pokemon and its stage on it. The one in my arms only had Skwovet and all of them seemed to be stageless.

I carefully placed the foam board on the ground and took at the other boards inside the crate. All 7 boards had Skwovet in them and each one was stageless, which to be honest, elicited a bad feeling inside me. A suspicion started to brew that I honestly hoped was not correct.

I went to the next crate beside the first one and opened it to check if there were Pokeballs in there as well. That happened to be the case, so I took out each foam board to check which Pokemon had been brought over.

The first board also had Skwovet in it, the next one had stageless Blipbug, 3 boards had stageless Rookidee, and the last two boards had Pokeballs containing stageless Wooloo.

With each successive board containing stageless Pokemon my bad feeling grew, so I quickly went up to the next crate. That one contained 2 boards with stageless Pikipek, a board with stageless Yungoos, 2 boards with stageless Grubbin, and 2 boards with stageless Pyukumuku.

I immediately went to the next crate and all 7 boards contained Pokeballs containing stageless Lillipup. The crate after that also had only stageless Lillipup in it, and the last crate had 2 boards of stageless Patrat, 3 boards of stageless Pidove, and finally two foam boards with Pokeballs containing stageless Purrloin.

It was pretty obvious that the cargo came from the western continent since all Pokemon were species that could be generally found in regions on that continent.

I even understood why they had so many Skwovet and Lillipup since cute sells and they could make a lot of money by selling them through various channels.

That all of them were stageless probably meant that they were young which in itself was not a problem, but so many of them being like this was not a good sign.

If I was right then getting so many younglings meant that their criminal group or their supplier had either raided some breeders or had raided Pokemon communities, robbing all the younglings they could find.

What happened to those besides the younglings was questionable, but probably nothing good. Just as I was contemplating whether to slap, I mean rouse either Tom, Dick, or Harry to ask some pointed questions, I heard a muffled cry coming from the right corner.

I moved towards the source and saw a large box covered by a tarp. I removed the tarp and saw that a cage was underneath it and not a box. More surprising was that a Drowzee was locked inside.

Its hands and neck were cuffed and since it seemed to be unable to use its abilities, I was willing to bet the cuffs were made with some dark-type materials.

What surprised me was the shock as well as recognition I felt and saw from the Drowzee making me wonder why, until I thought of an unlikely possibility.

I mean this Drowzee couldn't be the same Drowzee I saw more than 5 years ago. I mean that was on Route 3 nearly 2500 km from here. What kind of coincidence would it take for that Drowzee to appear before me 2500 km from our initial meeting place.

I saw that the Drowzee was studying me and it now had a slightly sad look which made me think that the likelihood of this being that Drowzee increase considerably.

That, or it was just sad about the situation it found itself in, so I decided to just ask it.

"Sorry, I know that it's not the best time to ask this but could it be that we met before this?"

"Drow, zee, Drowzee," it confirmed that it was the one I met all those years ago.

"Really, incredible. I hope you have been well," I replied but only received a deadpan look in return while I heard my Pokemon snickering behind me.

I realized just a moment later how dumb that sounded considering the situation we were in right now. So I sheepishly rubbed the back of my head like any other protagonist would and apologized.

"Sorry, that was tactless and thoughtless of me. Anyway, how about I help you out of the cage as well as the cuffs, and you tell me how you landed in this situation," I proposed to Drowzee and it agreed without any hesitation, so I opened the door by ripping it off its hinges.

I mean I didn't have the key and I didn't want to keep searching for it, so that seemed to be the fastest way. Drowzee stepped out of the cage but looked worriedly between its cuffs as well as me and even shrunk its neck when I stepped towards it.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to try to do that with your cuff," I placated it knowing why it was reacting like that. "Do you have any idea where the keys to your cuffs are?" I asked in hopes that I wouldn't be forced to search for them.

Drowzee actually nodded and pointed toward one of the sleeping prisoners. I walked up to the guy and checked the pockets of his trousers and found a bundle of keys in his right pocket.

I released Drowzee from its captivity and asked it how it landed in this situation since it was the only one not stored in a Pokeball as far as I could see. It initiated a telepathic conversation since those were much faster and I accepted.

'Well, after I got rejected by you, I was really sad for a few days before I decided that enough was enough. I decided that day that I would never feel like that again and threw myself into some really hard training to get stronger, believing that being stronger would prevent me from feeling like that again.

I traveled on foot while I was training and my journey brought me a long way from my starting point. I worked myself to the bone and strived hard to reach my limits. Even after I felt as if I could break through into the next stage I preserved and kept training.

Only after it looked like I could no longer squeeze out any progress no matter how hard I trained or how much I bled did I break through to the bronze stage.

That was a year ago, and since then I kept traveling and training. I have become stronger still, but two days ago during the night, while I was passing by this place, I felt bad vibes coming from here, so I decided to investigate why I was feeling that way.

Unfortunately, I was caught in the act and despite trying to confront them I was beaten and then caught. They said that psychic Pokemon were pretty rare and that they were undecided if they should sell me or keep me, so until that was decided they were not planning to "ball" me.

Instead, they placed these cuffs on me that blocked my psychic powers and stuffed me inside that cage only removing that cover to give me just enough food or water to keep me from starving or dying of thirst,' he recounted and I listened to the whole narration without interrupting him.

Still, to think that my rejection had impacted him that much. That knowledge made me feel a bit worse about the rejection than I had already been feeling anyway.

'To be honest, I pretty soon regretted declining your wish to join me and I even returned to our meeting place and searched the area in hopes of finding you, but your story explained why I couldn't find you.

I'm really sorry about rejecting you and I hope that you can forgive me for hurting your feelings. Still, if you're willing to accept I'm offering you to join me. I have the ideal place for you to train and live if you do so, and I'm sure you'll make much bigger progress there than you would make otherwise.

I'm also willing to support your training through supplements and I don't want to brag, but I am an awesome cook,' when I said that a cacophony of agreements came from around us, showing that my Pokemon were listening in on our conversation, probably courtesy of Horus and the others.

I knew that he knew that I had been honest when I said that, not only because it was easier to discern truth and lies during a telepathic conversation, but also because I had been projecting my actual feelings while making my offer.

I saw him consider the offer and chose to quietly wait for his decision, but the others did not think so and urged him to join bragging about the food and great home he would get if he joined.

'Alright, I'll join you,' Drowzee ultimately agrees and I pat him on his shoulder in elation while my Pokemon start cheering. I use that moment to check his status screen to see what had changed since our last parting.

'Species: Drowzee

Gender: Male

Type: Psychic

Potential: Yellow

Stage: Bronze-Stage (mid)

Genetic variation: None

Abilities: Forewarn

Talents: None

Affinities: Psychic'

I capture him before doing a full sweep of the warehouse to make sure I did not miss anything, and I found nothing else besides a few bags of money.

I actually had to do everything by the book during this mission since I was pretty sure that there was someone from the academy supervising me from somewhere/someway I couldn't detect. I was nearly absolutely sure that his or her job was making sure I did not die during the mission in case of some unforeseen events.

I did not begrudge the move of the academy since it was done with my well-being in mind and was a logical move on their part. Still, that meant I couldn't touch the Pokemon in the crates, Drowzee was an exception because we had a past connection.

Well, I was sure they would let me make a request or two regarding the Pokemon, so I had to be satisfied with that. Anyway, after making sure I had missed nothing I went up to two of the still sleeping criminals and healed them up before rousing them from their sleep.

I told them that I had taken out their group and that everyone was going to be handed over to the authorities. Well, everyone except for them. During my investigations, I found out that these two were the drivers of the group.

Moreover, they only did it to earn money and support the local "unofficial" orphanage which they came from. Both avoided committing any crime besides knowing what was happening, but they saw no other option to earn enough money to support the whole orphanage.

They were only in their twenties and due to their financial status they could not buy any supplements, so they were only junior trainers, and not so impressive ones at that, which was why they had to work as drivers for the criminals to earn money since they could not earn enough money as trainers.

Honestly, that in itself was quite an achievement, but I felt pity after learning about their experiences, so I told them they were free to go. I even gave them some of the money from the bags since it wasn't mine in the first place. This way it would go to the orphanage they were supporting.

Once the two were gone I called Mr. Cameron and reported the success of the mission. I told him my current location and he instructed me to wait for the people he was sending over to take the criminals into custody and to receive the "ware".

It took 10 minutes for the team to come over and the leader directly handed over a phone connected to Mr. Cameron to prove that they were the people I was expecting.

I was told to go to Mr. Cameron's office tomorrow at 10 a.m for a debriefing before I went home. The next day I told Mr. Cameron in detail what I did and why I did it. He calmly listened to my whole report and praised me for a job well done after I was done with my report.

He told me that I received the promised 200 points, in addition to 72 points for the grunts I caught along with Tom, Dick, and Harry. I got another 42 points for the Pokemon I saved, and 16 points for the compassion as well as the attitude I showed during the mission.

So, the points I earned during this mission were an impressive 330 points, bringing my academic point total to 1499. After that was done I asked Mr. Cameron if a friend of mine could choose one of the Blipbug to join his team.

I was pretty sure that an Orbeetle would be a good addition to Kinji's team. Mr. Cameron said that it was no problem and gave me permission to inform Kinji of the opportunity to get one of the Blipbug to join him.

He asked me if I wanted a chance like that as well, but the only ones I was currently interested in were the Rookidee or Lillipup, but apparently, those had been reserved for the Knight Academy.

They had apparently paid a lot of money for them, which had been funneled to some of the more needy orphanages around Rota. He actually gave me an eye smile when he said that, all that was missing was the conspiratorial wink.

I thanked him for agreeing to my previous request and left after getting the go-ahead.

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