Chương 135: Chapter 130

The first thing Sam did in Olivine was find a Pokémon Center, but he didn't want to risk revealing either Typhlosion or Annihilape. Rather than heading to the city's main Pokémon Center, he went to a small, lesser-used one set at the edge of a residential area. The lobby was empty save for him and the nurse when he passed over his team's Pokéballs.

"One of my Pokémon evolved recently, but his evolution is pretty rare. You can make sure he stays secret, right?" Sam asked the nurse on duty.

"Of course! We get plenty of trainers who want to keep some aspect of their team quiet. Alongside doctor-patient confidentiality, Pokémon Centers also offer private check-up rooms. However, keep in mind that the health of your Pokémon takes priority over keeping secrets. We will share information if it's needed to properly heal a patient, and we won't bother to hide your team members if an emergency sees us run out of space." Sam easily nodded.

"But the end-of-season crush hasn't started just yet, so I don't expect any problems with your request," the nurse said with a smile.

"Just give me a second to look up your Pokémon in our system, and—" The moment she finished entering Sam's trainer ID number into her blocky computer, she went completely still. Her eye flicked between the displayed information, Sam's Pokéballs on the counter, and Sam himself, and then a tense smile forced its way onto her face.

"We will keep your Pokémon secret," she said, her voice a forced calm.

"And you'll give Annihil— Sorry, my Pokémon a checkover just in case? I, uh, also have some Gastly that have been 'following' me that would probably benefit from a check-up, too." They had a process for healing unofficial team members, surprisingly, as while part of a Pokémon Center's duty was to make sure trainers followed the League's rules, their priority was making sure Pokémon were healthy no matter what. Thankfully, Morty had been correct in that there wasn't much they could do about Ghost Type followers.

The nurse simply took Sam's Pokéballs before directing him into a side room. There, the Center's resident Ghost Type, a Haunter, gave instructions to the Gastly to have them split off two at a time to be checked over by a Chansey. Everyone was fine, although there was a bit of a snag with Annihilape. Unlike Typhlosion, he didn't have a local variant of his species to compare his results to. They could only compare him to Primeape, but Primeape weren't Ghost Types.

In fact, the only known Ghost Type species that evolved from non-Ghost Types were Shedinja and Froslass, and both were far too different from the Primeape line for their data to be useful. The nurse was unable to tell if he had no heartbeat or an extremely fast but light heartbeat, so she requested that he stay for observation overnight. This process was to make sure he could be treated correctly in the future as Carl had managed to do exactly what he promised; no alert was sent out when Annihilape was scanned.

He was already in their system. The Gastly took over an hour to be checked, and Annihilape would be stuck in the Pokémon Center until tomorrow. Forced to wait, Sam chose to step out to take care of some "boring" errands that Annihilape wouldn't care about. It was late afternoon when he left. Weirdly, stepping out meant their group split up. Upon getting only a block away from the Pokémon Center, Typhlosion suddenly released herself from her ball and sniffed the air.

She gained a look in her eye that told Sam there was something—someone—she needed to guide, and Misdreavus left alongside her to provide both support and company. Sam didn't want to crowd her task, and he trusted her to be successful. With the few team members he had left (and with the large number of Gastly), he made his way to a nearby PokéMart to restock on supplies. Shopping stunk. In this case, literally.

As much as Sam wanted to get a move on, while browsing through the PokéMart's shelves full of healing supplies, he wasn't necessarily attacked so much as he was "glomped." The same Muk that he and Redi had once fought out of a pond now lived nearby, and it brought Sam into a nasty hug out of thanks for allowing it to find its new partner. While it was nice to be appreciated, Sam couldn't say he enjoyed being covered in the sludge left by the Muk.

While helping him clean up, the sole clerk working at the PokéMart apologized profusely and assured him that they'd get a shower installed eventually, but Sam couldn't say that helped him right now. At least, the clerk gave him a nice discount on everything he bought, and he even threw in a free, bulging bag of PokéBlocks. The PokéBlocks were presented as a rare treat not usually found in Johto, but due to their source being Hoenn, they were a nice reminder of home.

So by the time Sam left, it was dark out, and while he walked, he tossed those candies made of crushed berries into the shadows for his Pokémon. Gastly ate them like hungry Carvanha, and so many PokéBlocks had been stuffed into the sack that there would still be plenty left for the rest of his team to enjoy in the Pokémon Center.

"So that's errands done with. No need to shop anymore until right before we head out. Then again, Berries will be cheaper here than in Cianwood, so we might want to stock up on fresh ones right before we leave." As he walked down the road, Sam continued to toss PokéBlocks into the shadows for Haunter and the Gastly to snap up.

"But no matter what, we just have the exciting stuff left to do: finding a boat to take us to Cianwood, visiting the Gym, and then also finding someone willing to let us trade for a new Pokémon." He slowed slightly as he considered what his plans meant.

"Man. We have to find a sixth Pokémon," Sam said quietly.

"Not sure if that's going to be worse or easier than scheduling a fight at the Gym." Even with the need for a sixth team member hanging over his head, Sam considered a battle with Jasmine to be the most complicated task he had planned. He wanted— needed —to fight her core team after seeing just how strong her Steel Types were at the start of the Beginner's Tournament. However, with how the timing was working out, he was a little worried that Jasmine wouldn't be free for a proper battle.

With only a month left in the season, trainers were going to start pushing for their last few Gym Badges. It would soon become almost as busy as the season's start, but trainers with seven Gym Badges usually took priority when it came to scheduling a match.

"Except, that priority is only for trainers trying to earn a Gym Badge," Sam continued, just thinking out loud.

"I want us to fight her core team, which is an optional fight from her perspective since we've already beaten her Gym." But he needed to see where his Pokémon stood. He knew his team had grown, but he wanted to see how much. When he had first seen it in the arena, Jasmine's Steelix seemed like an impossible wall to climb. Now, after everything they'd been through, it felt like his team actually had a chance. It'd be tough, but they could do it.

Also, he just wanted to fight some actual Steel Types instead of the miscellaneous Rock Types that had appeared in his first Gym.

"So then we just need to figure out how we're scheduling all of this," Sam said as a thrown PokéBlock sank into a shadow. He made a hard left turn to slip into an alley for a shortcut.

"Do we want to search for a sixth team member first, or do we want to face Jasmine as soon as possible? Getting a sixth team member first would give us more time for training and maybe let us use another member in the match, but with the end of the season so soon, we probably want to battle her before things get too busy." Even though he was just speaking to work through his thoughts, he still paused to wait for a response.

The Gastly and Haunter were too focused on snapping up what PokéBlocks they could, and Misdreavus or Typhlosion weren't anywhere nearby. Sam sighed, planning to have a better discussion once everyone was back in the Pokémon Center. It was then that he heard a growl suddenly echo out from behind. Turning around, Sam glanced over to see the source of the threat sent his way.

There, at the front of the alley and half-illuminated by the street lamps, was a dark blue-grey Pokémon with rough, scaled skin and a bright red chest. Fins stuck out from its arms to resemble wings, and another fin on its back made it seem as though it was almost aquatic. It stood on two legs, however, and it exposed its sharp teeth with a snarl. The clearly wild Pokémon took a step forward, and Sam could only stare at it in confusion.

The way it kept glancing at his bag of PokéBlocks made it pretty obvious what it wanted. However, even with its threat, Sam was more confused than concerned, and he struggled to understand why a Gabite, of all things, would be threatening him from one end of an Olivine alley. The Gastly, too, seemed just as bewildered as their shadows spread to the alley walls around him. Within that curtain of darkness, a pair of red eyes opened up, and then another, and another.

And immediately after that, Trevenant released himself from his Pokéball to loom behind Sam just in case.

"You—" That was all Sam got to say. Before anything else could happen, the Gabite let out a sudden yelp and turned in a panic. It ran, escaping in a furious scramble out of the alley that saw its claws scrape against the stones of the ground. And then it was gone. And Sam was left blinking. He looked around at all of the Gastly, and all of the Gastly looked back.

"So, that was definitely a Gabite, right? Like, I didn't just imagine a mid-stage pseudo-legend standing there?" Sam asked.

"A Dragon Type. From Sinnoh. Here in Johto. It wasn't an illusion or a Ditto or anything like that?" The Gastly left their shadows to bob in the equivalent of a shrug, and Haunter dipped out as well to confirm that, yes, he saw it too. Sam checked on Trevenant, but Trevenant no longer cared. He just flicked his eye down to the Moon Ball at Sam's belt in a silent request to be returned. Sam sighed as he brought him back.

"Is it still nearby, Haunter?" Haunter shook his head—it wasn't. At least, he couldn't sense any of its intent nearby. The weirdest part, too, was that the Gabite couldn't possibly have had truly malicious intentions. Otherwise, Sam's team would have detected it far sooner and alerted him ahead of time.

"... Okay. Well, Typhlosion and Misdreavus are waiting for us, and I don't want to leave Annihilape alone in the Pokémon Center for too long. We'll check to see if anyone is missing a Gabite when the jobs are posted tomorrow morning." Haunter and the Gastly recollected themselves in his shadow, and Sam continued heading back. As he returned, Typhlosion and Misdreavus met Sam outside the Pokémon Center, stepping out from where they had been hiding in the darkness.

They got their fair share of the treats, and Sam only got a slight talking-to when he had Haunter phase through the walls to sneak PokéBlocks to Annihilape. And, when Sam returned Annihilape the next morning—the nurse found nothing wrong with him—the happy (less angry) look on his face almost made getting coated by Muk worth it. No post on the job board mentioned the Gabite, but there was a single, far too suspicious listing that might have been mentioning it. MISSING POKEMON: 100, 000 REWARD.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. And that was it. The job didn't list the species, but it included a phone number to call for when a trainer had something to present. It was also an open offer with no set date, which meant any trainer could take it at any time without any issue. Its sheer lack of detail raised alarm bells in Sam's head, but the weirdest thing was that there was no way it could be a scam.

Every job posted on a job board had to be vetted by the city's Pokémon Centers first, so this vague posting had somehow been approved despite the sheer number of details it lacked.

"... We might want to take a different job or two in the meantime, but maybe another day," Sam mumbled to his team. He hadn't taken any jobs in Ecruteak, and Redi was no longer around to help pay for food. Their little battle event jar earned them enough to last, but he knew he would need a lot of cash to buy the supplies needed to finish off the season in Ilex. Sam chose not to think about that strange job.

While it seemed to be about that Gabite, dwelling on the idea of missing out on that much cash would only serve to make him sick. He had other goals to achieve, and he'd already reached a conclusion with his team; before anything else, he would get a sixth Pokémon. Maximizing the time available for training was imperative, and having a sixth team member on hand for a battle against Jasmine could help the new Pokémon get used to everyone else. But it wouldn't be easy.

Sam would need to find someone willing to trade away their Ghost Type, and that Ghost Type needed to be a species capable of helping with transportation. Given Olivine's status as a port city, someone had to be willing to trade a viable Pokémon somewhere, and Sam's planned offer was likely to open up doors. Unlike most trainers searching for a trade, he had no intention of trading away a team member, but he would offer his services.

While an open-ended proposal wouldn't normally be worth that much, Sam's team was nearing eight stars. They excelled at searching, too, and could go out to capture any requested species in return. Unfortunately, while his team could find wild Pokémon, they couldn't exactly find someone willing to trade. Sam wasn't social like Redi, either. It was completely out of his skillset to approach a random trainer, strike up a conversation, and then leave with pertinent information.

He knew one person in the city, at least, and she wasn't Redi's aunt. No, Redi's aunt would just guilt him into staying at her place, but the person he had in mind seemed social enough to at least give him a starting point for his search. Following that plan, Sam left the Pokémon Center and traveled toward a certain location situated close to the docks. When he arrived, that same, imitation Kalosian restaurant was still in business. More than that; it was thriving.

Through its front glass windows, he could see it had significantly more customers than the nearly empty building he and his team had eaten at before. Last time I was here, I learned that rarer Pokémon could be found off-route. I also promised to show off any Kalosian species I could, which Trevenant technically fulfills. Only slightly nervous, Sam stepped inside, and a chime rang to announce his entrance.

The place still had the same faux-fancy vibes as last time, but instead of being greeted by Matilda, the waitress here, Sam was greeted by an entire room full of burly sailors who all fell into perfect silence to send him their glares.

"I, um..." His throat suddenly felt parched. He heard the squeak of a fork being bent as if in threat. Rescue came in the form of a door to the kitchen opening up in the back. The moment she saw him, Matilda's face lit up with excitement.

"It's you! One of our first customers! It's— It's, uh... Ss... Seth, right?" She snapped her fingers, as if proud of her memory, but Sam just shook his head. Her expression fell.

"Mm... Matt?" she offered.

"It's Sam."

"Sam!" Matilda happily replied. The waitress practically bounced over to the podium set in front of the door.

"I'm so glad you showed up! It's way better here than last time, right? Oh, is that cute lil' Mankey still with you? And your Cyndaquil? Ah! And did you manage to catch any of those rare Pokémon we talked about?" Sam glanced around the room. The sailors had all gone back to eating. Many of them had Pokémon out, where they tossed food to species like Krabby, Wingull, and one especially mean-looking Poliwrath.

"Is your restaurant popular now?" Sam asked weakly. The sheer number of those hateful glares spurred a completely different type of fear than that caused by the Ghost Type.

"Yes! I mean, kind of?" Matilda said.

"Apparently, we're the only place around that can make a decent Kalosian dish. So, we've become pretty popular with sailors who enjoyed that kind of food while traveling out of Johto." Sam managed to peel his eyes away from the rest of the room to look back at Matilda. She was eagerly waiting for him to keep talking, probably wanting him to request a free table. Unfortunately, he wasn't here for lunch. He pushed aside the slight bit of guilt he felt for letting her down.

"I'm actually here for your help," Sam said.

"I wanted to know if you knew anything that could help me search for a Pokémon." Silence. Once again, the entire restaurant immediately fell into perfect silence. In front of him, Matilda went completely still. Every single sailor resumed staring daggers at him, and Sam felt as though the shared gaze burned even more than before.

"Everything alright, Maddie?" one of the sailors called out.

"Y-yeah!" she said, laughing nervously.

"You need help finding a... a Pokémon? Just, um, what kind of Pokémon? What do you mean, um, specifically?" She didn't look away from Sam, and neither did any of the sailors. Even with his Ghost Types, a battle against an entire ship's worth of men and women strong enough to face the high seas was not something he'd win.

"I'm just trying to find a Ghost Type!" Sam blurted out.

"I just wanted to know if you knew someone willing to trade!" And just like that, the room went back to normal. Matilda breathed out in relief without bothering to hide it.

"Oh, yeah! I can totally help! Just, hm. Well..."

"I caught a Trevenant, by the way," Sam added.

"I'll definitely figure something out!" Compared to before, all of her nerves had vanished. She took a moment to glance around and check that her customers didn't need anything before waving Sam over to the side.

"Your Trevenant—Can you send them out?" she asked excitedly.

"There's not enough space in here for him, but I'll show you Trevenant no matter what. I already said I would. But we really do need your help. We're trying to find a Pokémon that can help with transportation, and Ghost Types that can do that aren't very common."

"So you came to me?" She looked flattered.

"You seemed connected," Sam said, speaking as if he knew anyone else.

"I thought that maybe you knew someone already looking for a trade or that you knew someone else who might know. I'm not trading away any of my Pokémon, but I'm willing to go out and catch anything in exchange for something like a Frillish, or a Drifloon, or even..." He bit his tongue. He didn't think he'd find a white-striped Basculin here.

"Those are specific," Matilda commented.

"Ghost Types don't really have many options for transportation," he said.

"But, uh, do any of the... Do any of these sailors have one of those Pokémon they're willing to trade?" Matilda winced as she checked behind her. Sam got the sense that one or two of the sailors here might have had those Pokémon, but they certainly wouldn't be willing to trade. Then, he started to think about it— really think about it. The more he did, the more he realized how difficult his goal would be to achieve.

Some of these sailors might have had the Pokémon he was looking for, but those Pokémon would have been traveling the world with them for all this time. Matilda didn't say that, however. Instead of giving up, she hummed with her brow furrowed, trying to think of something that could help Sam. Either out of kindness or only out of a desire to see Trevenant, it was clear she had no plans to speak until she had something helpful to say. She was quiet for a while....

But as she stayed quiet, and as Sam desperately waited for her reply, the door to the kitchen opened in the back. It was strange; Matilda was the only waitress that worked here. No person walked out. Instead, a gurgling hum came from the floor, and Sam looked down. He blinked. He rubbed his eyes. He then double-checked to make sure he was seeing the Pokémon correctly.

"Is that a Goomy?" Sam asked. Shocked, Matilda turned around, and she also laid her eyes on a round, purple slug that looked around the room with awe and a merry expression on its face. Matilda finally made a noise—she gasped—and she ran over to the Pokémon. Scooping it up, she started to send the Goomy chiding whispers while facing away as if trying to hide it from Sam.

"Nope!" she called out over her shoulder.

"Definitely no Goomy here!" The sailors didn't stop eating this time around, but they did return to glaring at Sam, almost daring him to try anything over that Pokémon. A Poliwrath hopped off a chair to roll its shoulders in what could only be a threat. At this point, too many weird things were going on. Even with the implied threat, Sam was too fed up to not ask.

"Alright, what's going on? You're acting like you need to hide that Pokémon, and that's the second random Dragon Type I've seen in the past day!" Matilda stopped whispering to the Goomy to go silent for several long seconds.

"You've seen another?" she asked cautiously.

"Wait, and you know what a Goomy is?"

"Yes to both," Sam said, doing his best to ignore the sailors.

"A Gabite tried to attack—well, rob me last night. Tried to, because my Pokémon scared it off." He then paused before remembering another detail he'd forgotten.

"Wait, what do you mean, 'another?' Are there more than that Gabite? Hold on, and does all of this have to do with that job in the Pokémon Center?" Matilda bit her lip and looked like she desperately didn't want to say anything, but she eventually sighed and turned back around to reveal the Goomy once more. The small Dragon Type happily purred and wiggled in her arms. Wherever it touched, it left a slimy film behind.

"So you don't know," Matilda said.

"I really don't," Sam answered.

"Huh. Alright, follow me. I need to wash up now, anyway," she said. She used her shoulder to push through the door to the kitchen, and Sam easily followed her through, more than willing to leave all of those harsh glares behind.

"Tch. So he slipped out again? I'm telling you, we should just turn him in for the money," a voice grumbled.

"We're not giving up Goomy, Dad." Matilda placed the small Pokémon on a stool next to a stocky chef who had to be her father. While she was busy washing her arms and replacing her apron, the man quickly dumped an entire plate of food into the Goomy's open mouth when he thought no one was looking.

"It all started a few weeks ago. A bunch of poachers got busted at the docks," Matilda said as she re-tied a clean apron on her back.

"From what the news said, they were arrested for bringing in a ship full of illegally caught Pokémon from other regions. The story was everywhere for, like, an hour before it stopped pretty quickly and was never talked about again." Sam found an empty stool to sit on. Matilda leaned against the counter while her dad continued to cook.

"So Goomy is from that ship?" Sam asked.

"We think so. The theory going around is that a bunch of the poached Pokémon escaped in the chaos. Goomy was lured here by the familiar smells, so we fed him. And he's far too cute to give up now!" The Goomy let out another gurgling purr, and Matilda put on a glove to pet his head. Her touch pushed down a pair of antennae, but the antenna bounced right back the second Matilda removed her hand.

"There are a bunch of Dragon Types running around town, we think. Wild, effectively, because otherwise there'd be more of a stir. If those Pokémon were stolen from trainers, someone would have tried to get their Pokémon back—""And poachers don't use Pokéballs," Sam growled.

"They purposefully mistreat them so the Pokémon better bond with whoever gets them next." Sam knew the details from everything that happened with Porygon and Dragonair. Poached Pokémon were taken from the wild and then purposefully kept in poor conditions to make sales easier. It was sick, and Dragon Types were the premier Type of Pokémon poachers went after. Between their rarity and their strength, almost every trainer wanted a Dragon Type to add to their team.

"So that's why you were so nervous when I came here," Sam said.

"You thought I was after Goomy, and that job I saw—""It's for the Dragon Types that escaped from the boat, yeah," Matilda answered.

"Honestly, it's probably such a big offer to try to convince trainers to not keep them. Whoever it's from, they want the Pokémon for themselves instead of letting a bunch of random trainers add Dragon Types to their team." So that's probably why the job is so vague. They don't want the information to spread. The only trainers going out to catch Dragon Types will be trainers aware of the Dragon Types. And then for most people, that much money is far more attractive than a new team member this late in the season.

It was a bit worrying that no one was talking about a bunch of potentially dangerous Dragon Types running around, especially since that Gabite had tried to go after Sam last night. Yet, it wasn't like their presence changed the status quo. They were only a handful of Pokémon in a city that vastly outnumbered them.

As long as none of the Dragon Types were fully evolved, at worst, they wouldn't be worse than something like a Houndoom trying to take food from someone—and that kind of interaction wasn't even that uncommon.... But in those cases, more explicit jobs would be posted to stop that threat, and Gym Trainers usually stepped in to capture dangerous Pokémon in cities. These Dragon Types were still inherently strong, and they could easily lash out if cornered in an unfamiliar city.

"Do you know who put the job up?" Sam asked.

"Or why the poachers brought all these Pokémon here?" Both Matilda and her father shook their heads, but Sam had his theories. However, while only so many groups had the money and influence to suppress a news story so quickly, he didn't think the Blackthorn Clan would willingly purchase a ship full of poached Pokémon. They also seemed far too proud to ever branch away from the Dragonite line. Probably.

But there were still plenty of other rich people more than willing to fork over that much cash just for the off-chance of having such rare Dragon Types, too.

"So then Goomy and Gabite," Sam said after giving it some thought.

"What other Pokémon escaped the ship?" Matilda casually waved a hand.

"I heard something about the authorities catching a Shelgon pretty quickly. And then I think there were sightings of something called a Druddigon last week? Oh wait, hold on! I think there was also a trainer going around and bragging about catching an Arctibax?" She looked over for confirmation, but her father shrugged. Matilda had spoken casually, but her words stuck with Sam. Shelgon were native to Hoenn. Gabite were native to Sinnoh.

Goomy were native to Kalos, and Druddigon were somewhat familiar, but he was pretty sure they were from Unova, which was a region he couldn't say he knew that well. But Arctibax weren't familiar at all. Given the situation, Sam decided to risk it and took out the new Pokédex. Matilda cocked her head at the sight of the book but said nothing as he began to read. She left to pass out some finished dishes and came back carrying empty plates by the time Sam found the entry that described Arctibax.

"Here," Sam said as she returned.

"Arctibax. That's... a Dragon Type from Paldea."

"Oh, Paldea! That's close to Kalos, right?"

"Maybe?" Sam answered.

"I don't know where the region is, just that it exists." Matilda shrugged in the same way her father had done before. She looked mostly unconcerned.

"So then... the boat had a Goomy. And a Shelgon. And a Druddigon. And even an Arctibax," Sam repeated, listing them off.

"Those are all Dragon Types from across the world. There's... there's no way there would be more. Right?" His words hung in the air.

"... Right?" Instead of looking over to Matilda, Sam looked at Goomy. The Pokémon was busy humming to itself while chewing on even more food that had been slipped to it when no one was looking. But when it saw Sam staring, it stopped chewing to swallow. Sam gulped as well when a certain question came to mind.

"When you were on that ship, did you see it?" he asked slowly.

"A Pokémon. A floating one. Green and lizard-like. One with a tail that becomes transparent toward its end." The seconds seemed to stretch out into an impossible length. Sam stared at the Goomy and waited for its answer. The little Pokémon bobbed up and down as it considered the question. After a moment, it shivered and looked away from Sam, intimidated by the intensity of his stare. Eventually, however, it responded. Slowly, the Goomy sent Sam a nod. It had seen that Pokémon there.

And to that, Sam went quiet, not sure what to do or even what to think. Because if the Goomy was remembering correctly, then somewhere out there, somewhere out in the depths of Olivine, there was the impossibly rare Dragon-Ghost Type Pokémon Dreepy that Sam could go out and catch.