Chapter 91. Return on Investments

"Hey Alex, remember me?" the other cop said.

Of course, Alex remembered him. He'd been a classmate—the one who ratted him out to Don. The same guy whose older brother had been arrested for corruption. He'd been holding a grudge for over six years.

Now he'd come to personally deliver Alex to the next client. Still, Alex didn't bother putting a name to the face. He just referred to him as the scout in his head.

"Not particularly, no," Alex replied, feigning ignorance—which didn't sit well with the cop.

Smack!

The cop backhanded Alex, then turned him around and cuffed him.

"I'll make sure you're brought to justice this time," he muttered under his breath.

A thick, visceral, murderous aura surged from the mansion—but quickly died down. Alex had given the signal. From this point on, the others would follow the plan.

He was escorted into the police car and driven away from the mansion, back toward the city. 

Whatever that was inside the mansion, the cops didn't want to push their luck any further. Their orders were to apprehend him and take him to the drop off point. Nothing else.

-----

Meanwhile, in the forest next to Alex's farm...

A group of thirty men, heavily armed with full combat gear, firearms, and Pokémon, waited for the police car to leave before making their move.

Their target: the farm of a rising bounty hunter—the one who took down Monica Alfreds and Lucan Thorne, two powerful Elites in the trafficking business. Their mission was to raid the farm and make it look like a wild Pokémon attack had destroyed everything, including Alex and his team.

"He's got an Elite-ranked Hydreigon, so we need to bombard it with Play Rough bullets. Let the Pokémon act as a distraction while we focus fire. Is everyone clear?"

Everyone nodded. They were what their employer called an assault team—meant to move in fast, destroy everything, then vanish even faster. They had been operating for a year now, mostly used as hitmen.

But this time, they were about to take down the home of an actual Elite.

"There should be over thirty Pokémon on that farm, and eight women. Most of the Pokémon belong to the target and are all at Expert rank. The rest shouldn't be a problem, so long as we bring them down one by one. With their trainer gone, they'll be no different from wild Pokémon and should scatter immediately."

"The women on the farm used to work for Monica. Maybe we can start a business of our own," one of the men off to the side commented.

"Let's get a taste first before we start thinking of opening a shop. Wouldn't want to piss off the boss over a failed venture," another man beside him replied.

"Focus. Is everyone clear on the plan?" He received a round of nods. "Alright, let's move."

No sooner had they begun to advance when a terrifying, earth-shaking Roar erupted behind them, scattering the group in a panic. Their original plan went out the window immediately. Their Pokémon, reacting to their trainers' fear, also scattered.

The assault team fled—every man for himself—straight toward the unsuspecting farm.

Houndoom, the source of the Roar, gave chase, breathing out flames that engulfed the intruders one after another.

On the left flank, Morpeko rampaged with Aura Wheel, knocking out any Pokémon her tiny hands could reach. The humans who died had bits of them bitten off—though she avoided the faces as Alex instructed, targeting necks and limbs instead.

On the right, Absol unleashed Brutal Swings, cleaving through swathes of Pokémon and humans at a time. She hated these invaders. They had dared to try and take away her human.

Meanwhile, Lyra followed behind Houndoom, leading her team of three to mop up the stragglers the Elites had missed.

Over the past few months of training with Alex, Lyra had become less of a guard and more of a Ranger. Rather than staying at the farm, she patrolled the surrounding wilderness, thinning out local wild Pokémon that got too close to their territory.

The forest outside the farm was her domain. She knew it like the back of her hand—and these intruders didn't stand a chance once she sprung the ambush, backed by Absol, Morpeko, and Houndoom.

Thanks to Alex's training, she barely needed to coordinate. She simply directed them and unleashed them at the perfect moment.

This entire defense had been set in motion when Absol sensed an impending disaster that morning. She had whined to Alex, who immediately understood her and came up with the plan to defend their home.

That's how they had enough time to set up the ambush in the forest.

They knew it wasn't a Pokemon flood—thanks to the device at the edge of the training ground designed to alert them in such an event as required by the agreement with the surrounding farmers.

Alex had predicted this scenario thanks to Nyx's concerns a month ago about the building's owner. Putting the pieces together, he suspected the impending disaster was retaliation for his bounty hunting activities.

They devised a plan—and now, the farm was safe. The last of the intruding Pokémon and their trainers had fallen to the combined force of the Elites and Lyra.

Now, it was Alex and the hunting team's turn to deal with the source of the problem.

-----

Alex sat in the back of the cop car, silently praising his investment. He was honestly proud of himself for letting this little scout go during Don's case.

No doubt, the guy was just as corrupt as his brother—always doing the wrong things and finding all the wrong people. People with bounties on their heads that would, conveniently, fund Alex.

'Though the stock—cough, scout—had been stuck doing decent police work over the past year, he was here now, returning on that investment,' Alex thought.

It was nice, having someone deliver bounties straight to your doorstep like this. Alex hoped his scout would stay clueless about his real intentions for as long as possible.

The police car pulled up to a familiar warehouse in the slums. Ironically, it was the same one where Don had been arrested. Alex recognized the place and stifled a laugh.

Once they stopped in front of the warehouse, the officers dropped Alex—literally—at the front doors and quickly drove off.

Alex was inspected before being escorted deep inside. The warehouse was a full-on drug manufacturing facility, complete with all the bells and whistles.

Giant vats, large cylindrical containers, gauges, cranes—it looked like a typical villain's lair from the movies. All it was missing was a shark tank to complete the look.

He was brought to the main office on the top floor, where he was greeted by a blonde, short-haired man with eyeshadow, wearing a striped suit.

'Looks good. Maybe I should update my wardrobe,' Alex thought.

To the man's left and right stood a Jolteon and an Ampharos, both staring Alex down with fierce, intimidating eyes. And it worked. Alex figured his team would probably lose in an all-out fight with this Elite trainer.

They both had guns, after all. Then again, they didn't use stat-boosting moves, and their guns were too strong—so maybe he had a chance.

'Nah. He's running a speed team of six. They'd eat us up, one after another,' Alex concluded.

"So, you're the little troublemaker that caught Monica," the man at the desk said, eyeing Alex carefully.

"And you're Don's replacement?" Alex asked.

"The higher-ups have been eyeing Don's operations for a while, but he was too slippery to pin down. Anyway, I'm here to kill you as payback for capturing Monica. She was one of ours, and we don't take kindly to being disrespected like that. We have an image to uphold. No hard feelings," the man said, rounding the table and drawing his gun.

"This is about Monica? I thought you guys dropped weak trainers without a fuss. Honestly, I thought this was about that shipment you lost a month ago," Alex said, confused.

"You did that?"

"It should've popped up on my bounty records."

"Never checked. Anyway, orders from the top—and I'm here to carry them out. Any last words?"

"What's the name of your organization? All I know is you're a bunch of human supremacists."

"If you know, you're supposed to know. I'm not dumb enough to rat out the organization. They're... terrifying. Anyway—" the man said as he aimed the gun at Alex's forehead, "see—"

Suddenly, the lights went out. Alex tilted his head to the left and quickly slipped out of the cuffs he had secretly unlocked in the car with a lock pick sewn into his clothes With his left hand, he grabbed the barrel of the gun and pushed it to the right—just in time for it to discharge, firing a Thunderbolt behind him.

In the same motion, he slapped the man's hand off the grip of the weapon with his right hand. Alex then firmly took hold of the gun, aiming it properly before shooting the man in the shoulder.

A bolt of lightning discharged from the gun, piercing the man's shoulder cleanly and causing him to stagger. He must have had a high Electric affinity to survive the electrocution.

He grabbed the man's collar, spun him around, and pressed the gun to his head. Jolteon and Ampharos crackled with Electric energy, ready to strike.

"Now, Darren. It is Darren, isn't it?"

"Yes," Darren stammered.

"You're going to store your Pokémon and lock your Poké Balls, or I shoot—and we're both dead."

"I think they can take you before you shoot."

"They can. Which would cause me to involuntarily shoot you in the head. Wanna take that gamble?"

Darren sighed, then stored his Pokémon and locked the Poké Balls.

"Smart choice."

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