Chapter Ninety-Four: Ninja

Am sent out Haunter, and it seemed to be the turning point of the brawl.
Unlike Clefairy, who should have kept dancing, Haunter could slip into Clefairy’s shadow at the instant of its partner’s evolution, and it could even join the fight before then.

Though Haunter’s base stats were not high, and wild Haunters never grew very strong, its Ghost-type style was so eerie that the field was becoming increasingly unfavorable for Team Rocket.

“Nidoreign!”

As the moonlight swelled brighter, Nidorino suddenly threw back its head and let out a cry, bathing itself in evolution light. When the radiance faded, it had become a blue Nidoking.
Nidorino was also one of those Pokémon that evolved through the Moon Stone, and this time the chance to brush against the Moon Eye had nearly pushed its individual values to near perfection.

“You want to evolve? Even I wouldn’t mind granting you the courtesy once!”
“Pfft. Evolving through someone else’s shadow? It makes me sick just to think of it … Ghastly.”
“You can’t be done for, can you, Clefable…?”
“I can still beat ten more Haunters after this!”

At that moment both Clefairy and Haunter that Am had drawn in were in dire straits. Though both were already level fifty, skilled in battle and buffed by medicine, their raw statistics were still a weak point before they became Clefable and Gengar.

At least Clefairy’s evolution was approaching its final moment.

Am, meanwhile, swallowed an antidote. Unfortunately, for humans it worked far less dramatically than for Pokémon; Am was still dizzy and turning purple.

As neither side would yield in their proud, stubborn clash, large numbers of Clefairy and Haunter evolved one after another, and Team Rocket’s momentum was clearly fading.

Then, all at once, a jet of water thicker than a body of Onix burst out from the channel linked to New-Moon’s Tail—the very tunnel A Jian had been meant to take when Am first attacked him. It was not merely water. It was a Water Cannon.

One sweep of it had the effect of clearing the field.
The newly evolved Nidoking, the defiant Clefairy and Haunter, all of them were slammed away with no resistance and smashed into the rock wall.

Am’s chest tightened. Though it appeared to be a blanket sweep of friend and foe alike, it was obvious where it was mostly doing the cleaning.

The opponent did not seem to care if Team Rocket’s people or Pokémon were struck down by accident.

Xia’s Starmie and Gyarados tried to rely on their shared Water typing to hold the line, but Starmie’s Surf and Gyarados’s Waterfall were both knocked back at once, accomplishing almost nothing.

“Starmie! Gyarados!” Xia cried, moving forward—and stopped when weakened A Xing caught her. Xia had just rescued A Xing in the confusion and was now steadying her.

In that instant, an entire wave of Pokémon lost their fighting ability.

Then, as footsteps sounded, a female trainer in a long dress came out with her Starmie, face cold, hair slightly disordered, and visibly flustered.

“Now I see why we waited for nothing. Is there really another route?”

At once A Liang and another lieutenant, Hali, froze and bent their heads, about to make apology.
“Commander Sachi—sorry…”
“Silence! You lot of useless fools—cannot even handle this handful of people?” Sachi cut them off.
They trembled, suddenly speechless.

Then a pile of rubble shifted aside. From beneath it appeared Gengar and Clefable. By their aura, Am recognized at once: these were the two she already knew.

So in the end, they had finally merged their efforts.

Still, Am would not let hope rise.
Even after evolving, Gengar and Clefable had only risen to the level of Gengar and Clefable—far from overwhelming.
But this Sachi… Even from the one visible Starmie, she had to be at least king-tier, and certainly not weak for that tier.
This was no opponent a half-trained brawler like Am could solve with a single Motivation Draught, and those draughts were wearing off for everyone anyway.

“Fine. I’ll settle with you later. Starmie—eliminate them.”

With a command, Starmie spun into the air. The gemstone at its core burst into red light, and Psychic energy began to radiate outward in all directions. Am understood at once: Sachi intended to sweep away every Pokémon still able to fight and even the still-conscious humans in one motion.

Am was already at a loss, almost certain to be taken alive. A thought formed—he would have to call on Master Jumu’s name and warn that he had already informed him—when a flash of cold light shot from the right-eye cavity of the Kreslia Totem on the wall, straight at the airborne Starmie.

Whoosh—whoosh—whoosh—
Clang!

With a ringing blow and a crash, the once-imposing Starmie was brought crashing down, badly struck.

“What?” Sachi’s pupils narrowed in disbelief.

Then, from the right-eye cavity, a figure stepped forth. Am recognized him.

He had not seen him in person before, but he had checked his records recently, and he knew this attire. Even the style was unmistakable—almost the same as A Xing’s.

It was Aju, the master of Poison-type Pokémon and the official Gym Leader of Qianhong City.

And Am also saw what that streak of cold light had truly been: a Crobat.
He understood at once this must be Aju’s famed ace, a monarch-tier Crobat.

It had been Crobat that rushed out and, with a bug-type Cross Slash, knocked Starmie down. Yet Starmie, after being struck by that countered, type-advantaged move, still managed to float back up and face it. It had to be king-tier as well—surely a Pokémon with combat strength near one hundred and twenty thousand.

“Ah, Aju,” Sachi hissed through clenched teeth. “As expected of you. Not even showing yourself when your daughter was taken.”

At first Sachi had already suspected A Xing was not there by chance, which was why she had never revealed her true position and had only reported to A Liang and the others that A Xing was under attack.
More than that, Sachi was now certain Aju had not arrived by accident—he had been waiting for her all along.

A Xing, too, gave her father a troubled, accusing look.

She had not truly known her father’s ties to Team Rocket. She had found fragments of evidence and come to Moon-Viewing Mountain to verify her suspicion. That was why she had kept quiet from Xia and refused to move with them.

Aju, however, clearly did not belong to Sachi’s faction in this operation. He had been tracking a hidden current inside Team Rocket itself.

“The mastermind has not shown himself yet,” Aju said evenly. “How could I expose myself first?”

He had realized only halfway through that his daughter was tailing him, and so he had set this in motion as a lesson.
A second, silent lesson in being a shinobi.

When Sachi finally exposed herself, she was no ordinary agent: Sachi, one of Team Rocket’s seven generals.

“Brother Shen!”
“Mm.”

Shen Changqing had the habit, when he met someone familiar while walking the streets, of exchanging a greeting or a nod.
No matter who it was, their faces never carried much expression—cool, distant, almost indifferent to everything.

He was used to that by now.

This was, after all, the Demon Suppression Bureau, an agency charged with keeping Great Qin stable by slaying demons and monsters, with a few other side enterprises besides.
In a place like this, one could say everyone had blood on their hands. It was a stain that hardly washed off.

After seeing as much death as he had, a person’s feelings grew flat, detached.

When he first came into this world, Shen Changqing had been unsettled by it, but over time he had grown accustomed.

The Bureau was vast. Only people of substantial strength, or those with the potential to become strong, could remain here. Shen belonged to the second kind.

The Bureau recognized two ranks: Guardian Warden and Exorcist.
Everyone entered at the lowest rank, Exorcist, and rose step by step, with the hope one day of becoming a Guardian Warden.

In his former life, Shen had been a novice Exorcist—the lowest rung of that chain. With memories carried over, he knew the Bureau inside out.

He did not take long to stop before a small pavilion. Unlike the blood-soaked, stern parts of the Bureau, this place seemed to stand apart, a calm island amid the slaughter-stained gloom.

Its doors were open, with people coming and going. After only a brief hesitation, Shen stepped inside.

The atmosphere changed at once. A waft of ink-scent mixed with faint blood smell hit him. His brow twitched, then smoothed out naturally.
In the Demon Suppression Bureau, the reek of blood clinging to everyone was nearly impossible to clean away.