radicalducati Chapter 232 The Reason for Climbing the Tower
Chapter 232 The Reason for Climbing the Tower
"Miss Alice, are you alright?"
"I'm fine... Where are those plasma cluster assassins?"
"Let's try to get rid of them for now. The battle is over, and those self-proclaimed ninjas won't launch another attack until they receive a new mission."
"Detective Hugo." Hearing that the enemy had retreated, the purple-haired girl did not relax; instead, she asked him with concern.
"Those trainers' Pokémon... in the end, were they still stolen by the enemy?"
"In a sense, it was also stolen from us," Hugo said thoughtfully, emphasizing his words.
"The Dark Triangle did take away three hundred Poké Balls, intending to find a secluded place to destroy them. In that respect, their mission was complete... However, those Poké Balls were empty. I found them beforehand and released all the Pokémon inside into the wild."
"So, those bad guys failed to take the elves?" Alice's eyes lit up again.
"Yes, actually stopping those ninjas wasn't difficult at all. It's my fault for not explaining this clearly beforehand on the way here." The detective bowed slightly, apologizing.
“There may be some information gap between us, which has led you to misjudge the purpose of the Dark Triangle’s actions.”
"Misjudgment?"
“Yes, it’s a misunderstanding. In your eyes, those three Plasma Group executives should be no different from ordinary kidnappers, but the reality is not like that,” Hugo explained in detail.
"For kidnappers, stealing Pokémon is just one part of the process; the important part is the extortion that follows, using the stolen Pokémon to make a profit. For those three ninjas from Team Plasma, taking the Pokémon away from their trainers was the ultimate goal—in fact, their real mission was already over when the job was handed to them; everything that followed was just meticulous after-sales service."
"Their objective... Was it because you knew all this that you were able to defeat those three ninjas, Detective?"
"No, no, I don't have the talent for combat. The reason I was able to make them retreat was simply because I created a special condition that forced them to accept my persuasion."
All the Pokémon have emerged from their Poké Balls. Are you prepared to risk a huge failure and an attack from the Fuyu City police who will soon arrive on the scene to carry out this time-consuming and laborious mission to capture them one by one... or will you choose to compromise with your perfectionism?
"It doesn't really matter where you release Pokémon, right? You've already completed the task of releasing the Pokémon back into the wild for the person who issued the order, so just go back and report. Given your king's personality, he definitely won't make things difficult for you." That's how I convinced the Dark Trio. I told them that there's a middle ground between success and failure, where a mission can be 'barely completed'.
The trio of ninjas spent three times as long as an ordinary person pondering this question, and finally nodded in unison, choosing to accept the detective's suggestion.
"However, from another perspective, this can also be considered a remarkable victory," Hugo said to himself.
"Even the deepest gray will cloud the pure darkness. Accepting imperfect success and polluting the minds of that trio with ambiguous ideas might shake their thought processes that rely solely on commands and reason. Perhaps, instead of racking our brains to persuade the stubborn N, this confrontation and exchange with the trio will be more effective in striking at the dark empire that Ghetsis has built through his conspiracy..."
“Detective.” Alice didn’t notice Hugo’s murmured imagination.
"I failed to defeat those three ninjas. I neither persuaded them with words nor outsmarted them. I was defeated by them in the battle in the wild."
That's not how you say it.
Looking at the helpless girl, Hugo did not offer any words of comfort, but instead refuted her words.
"Any fight that takes place outside of a formal competition arena, without any rules, can be called an open-world fight. In such fights, no referee will intervene regardless of the methods used by either side, often resulting in incredibly brutal outcomes. However, precisely because the fights are completely unrestricted, the criteria for determining victory become blurred—the fact that you survived the fight unscathed was already beyond the expectations of that trio. Since the enemy failed to achieve their objective, even if you didn't win the fight, you still can't be considered a loser."
Standing in the center of a small hill made up of countless fallen trees, Hugo said this to Alice.
"Survived unscathed?" The purple-haired girl chuckled self-deprecatingly, her expression no longer as cheerful as before.
“Detective, I have exhausted all my last trump cards, and all the spirits on my body are also exhausted. I can no longer achieve my original purpose in coming to Fukiyori City.”
"Is that so?" Hugo said, his expression unchanged.
"I remember you wanted to challenge Mr. Ardek, right? Challenging the champion in your current state is indeed a bit unrealistic. Even if you go back to the Pokémon Center for emergency recovery, it will be a struggle. But if I may be frank, he is, after all, a champion. Even if Miss Iris were at her peak, she probably wouldn't have much hope of defeating him."
Alice bit her lower lip and remained silent.
"Since the outcome is basically the same, there's no need to be fixated on that battle, right? Although you didn't see Alder, you've already achieved your goal of testing your limits through this roundabout way. If you consider it from a trainer's perspective, you should have no regrets now."
Seeing that the purple-haired girl remained standing there silently, the detective had no choice but to continue—
"Or is it that you want to climb the Tower of Heaven where Alder is now in order to become the champion of the Unova region? Therefore, even though you know that your abilities are insufficient and your level is limited, you still want your strength to be noticed by Alder, to stand out from all the losers, and to hope that the champion will step down and hand over the title to you... Please don't have such thoughts, Miss Alice. The League Championship is not a prize for children's games. You should know in your heart that doing this is no different from whining."
Hugo knew he had said something very offensive, but since Alice was a challenger qualified to take the championship, he couldn't treat her like a little girl.
He had an obligation to tell Alice what this meant.
“That’s not why I want to challenge Mr. Ardek.” The girl shook her head, her purple, fluffy hair swaying gently behind her.
“I want to challenge Mr. Ardek because we are his students who have been taught by him and Volcano.”
The subject of Alice's words is "we," which naturally refers to herself and her partner fairy.
Thinking of this, the detective couldn't help but glance at the huge, battered Pokémon standing behind Alice.
"Under their guidance, Axew, no, Double Axe, and I have been able to get to where we are today. We want to show our teachers the fruits of their teachings—fighting, dueling, organizing tactics, unleashing skills, revealing our trump cards, and surprising them with our grown strength... We believe this is the best way to repay their guidance."
"So that's why you've always made Yaya wear the Everstone?"
"We designed a lot of tactics around the warfare that evolved in battle... alas, none of them are useful now."
If you think back to Iris's partner Pokémon, Salamence, Excadrill, and Hydreigon, these are all Pokémon that require a long period of training to complete their final evolution.
In comparison, Tooth, who had been hiding in Alice's hair and seemed to have no presence, appeared very out of place.
Why is it that the closest partner is a baby Pokémon that has no fighting ability?
Hugo noticed the anomaly and saw the Everstone that Fang was wearing. Therefore, he believed that even if the Dark Trio had tried to kill Alice, this purple-haired girl had enough trump cards to defend against the risks.
And reality proved the detective's prediction correct—in order to protect Alice from being crushed by the overwhelming sea of trees, Yaya chose to reveal this trump card prepared for Alderk ahead of time.
Its horizontal canine teeth grew, forming a hard, armor-like skin, thus becoming the Axe-toothed Dragon.
Its teeth transformed into red battle axes, its entire body was covered in armor, and its body became huge and slender, becoming the final evolved form, the Haxorus.
In an instant, Ya Ya completed this change of posture, using its battle axe to cleave the heavy sea of trees falling toward Alice into flying pieces of wood.
"We want the Volcano to be surprised by our unexpected tactics before it dies. Ideally, we'd defeat it and make it proud of the achievement of this top student. That's my goal."
Behind me, the cacophony of sirens gradually rose; it must be the police from Fukiyo City arriving at the scene.
Alice touched the hardened armor that her partner had grown after evolving, and said this with a lonely expression.