Chapter 75: Team Rocket's Trail (Patreon)

After dinner, Renan parted ways with Misty and went back to his room.

He took out a flask containing Toxic Spikes condensed by his Nidorino, topped it off with a little drinking water, swirled it around a couple of times, and finally tipped his head back to take a small sip.

Renan's Nidorino was on the offensive "kaleidoscope" path, so it hadn't put much training into Poison-type moves.

As a result, the Toxic Spikes it produced didn't actually drain HP all that fast once they hit.

Now that they'd been diluted even further with plain water, the effect was weaker still.

…That said.

Not long after he swallowed the liquid, Renan's face still turned a little green.

He was poisoned, and he could feel his stamina slowly draining away.

But then the Falna tattoo on the boy's back lit up quietly. The [Immunity] entry under Development Abilities in particular glowed so brightly it seemed it could shine through several layers of clothing.

Like the previous few nights, Renan first tried to tough it out with his body alone, constantly adjusting his breathing to speed up his metabolism.

Once about a third of his stamina was gone, he cast Moonlight on himself.

After more than twenty rounds of this, the toxins in his blood had almost stopped having any effect.

For safety's sake, though, Renan still followed the last Moonlight with an Antidote, to make sure he recovered completely.

His daily poison dosing finished, the black-haired boy stretched.

Then he took out a Moon Stone that had already absorbed part of its energy, held it in his hand, and prepared to begin tonight's Meditate.

But just then.

A rustle of whispered conversation from the next room drifted suddenly into Renan's ears.

"Is everything in place?"

"Our people have already disguised themselves as tourists and entered Cameran Palace in small groups. The moment we find any trace of Mew, we'll capture it immediately."

"Good. Remember, this is a mission Boss Giovanni gave us personally. Not the slightest failure will be tolerated."

"Yes, ma'am!"

Both speakers were women, and they kept their voices very low.

If Renan hadn't had the physique of a Lv4, with senses further enhanced by his spiritual power, he couldn't have made out a word of what they were saying even with his ear pressed against the wall.

But sometimes, things just work out that way.

Who could have guessed that the guesthouse room next door to their temporary lodging held a Gym-class psychic, and one with a blood feud against their organization, no less? The kind where they'd killed his father and mother.

On the other side of the wall, Renan had heard a very familiar title, and his expression froze in an instant.

His consciousness had crossed over into the Pokémon world, and while he wanted to use what this world had to offer to grow stronger, he had never forgotten, not for a moment, to fulfill the original Renan's wishes.

The first was to win the Indigo League. The second was to become a League Inspector.

As for the former, Renan was working toward it step by step.

As for the latter, he had no plans to stay in the Pokémon world for good, and he had no interest in becoming some kind of champion of justice. But just like the oath he'd made in the shared space, he wouldn't become an Inspector himself. Team Rocket, however, the largest underground organization in the Kanto region, was something Renan intended to wipe out completely.

What's more, since arriving in the Pokémon world, he'd pieced together enough from the information and intel he'd gathered on the forums to easily work out that the ones who had killed the original Renan's parents were members of Team Rocket.

In other words, every last one of them was a mortal enemy of the original Renan, and therefore of himself!

It was only that his own strength and his Pokémon's weren't enough yet. Otherwise, he would have charged straight into the Viridian Gym without a second thought, put Giovanni under hypnosis, and made him expose every bad thing he'd done over the years, though Giovanni still held a respectable public identity in the surface world.

Of course, even now, he had no intention of turning a blind eye to Team Rocket's activities.

But compared with rushing off alone to stop them like a hot-blooded fool, a boy with Dragon Tamer Lance behind him clearly had a far better way to handle this.

With his thoughts churning, Renan left his room and knocked on the door of his traveling companion's room.

Misty clearly hadn't gone to bed yet. She pulled the door open and looked at the boy in front of her, puzzled. "What's up?"

Renan didn't hesitate. The lie came out smoothly. "I sense a Psychic-type Pokémon nearby, and I'm going to try to catch it. I wanted to tell you before I left, so you don't go looking for me later."

Misty had known Renan was a psychic since the very first day, and he'd never hidden his use of psychic power.

He just hadn't had the chance to catch a Psychic-type Pokémon, and compared with other psychics, he always seemed to be missing something.

So she nodded. "Fine, I'll wait for you."

Renan declined. "No need, get some rest. If my luck's bad, I might fail tonight."

Misty giggled. "Then, as your partner, I'll just have to comfort you properly."

Seeing the girl's mind was made up, Renan didn't push. "All right. I'll be back soon."

The instant the words left his mouth, he vanished from where he stood.

Left behind, the orange-haired girl's smile gradually faded, and she murmured under her breath, "Liar."

…

Ever since his psychic power reached Gym-class, Renan's maximum Teleportation distance had come to about forty meters.

That was neither long nor short.

But getting from the guesthouse room to the street outside was no trouble at all.

A little over three minutes later, he walked into Oma Town's only Pokémon Center.

He looked over the somewhat noisy lobby, thought for two seconds, then went up to the counter where Nurse Joy was standing.

He took out his Pokédex and said, "Nurse Joy, I'd like to make a call, but the content is fairly private. Could I borrow the Pokémon Center's internal communicator?"

Joy had heard similar requests before.

She was only briefly taken aback, then smiled and nodded. "Of course." She even made a "please follow me" gesture.

She led Renan into her office and switched on the communicator for him. Seeing the boy start to dial, she was about to leave.

But the next moment, Renan's voice sounded in her ear again. "Nurse Joy, please stay too. What I'm about to tell my uncle has to do with, um, Team Rocket."

"Team Rocket?!" Joy was a little startled.

Renan answered calmly. "That's right, Team Rocket. I just… oh, it's connected."

On the communicator's screen, the figure of Dragon Tamer Lance quietly appeared.

Renan was fairly lucky. The original Renan's Elite Four uncle happened to be home resting today. Otherwise, he would have had to call his other uncles and aunts who served as Inspectors.