Driftveil City presented itself as a place driven by industry and momentum rather than comfort. Emerald-glass towers loomed over older market districts where workers, vendors, and freight moved in steady routines beneath near-constant rain. Below the streets, excavation defined the city's shape. Craters and tunnels fed into vast underground networks, with Clay Tunnel as the most prominent access point. Clay's Ground type Gym complex anchored this system, reinforcing Driftveil's identity as a city built on mining, logistics, and control over distribution.
The Pokémon World Tournament occupied the southern side of the city and dominated its public face. Its sprawling stadium complex drew trainers from across the world and pushed Driftveil into the international spotlight. Training halls and auxiliary Gyms clustered around it, catering to challengers and professionals alike. Battles were treated as business, with reputation and influence weighing as heavily as victory.
Beyond the tournament district, Driftveil reverted to its primary function. The port lined the western edge of the city, filled with automated cranes, container ships, and fishing vessels moving goods in and out of Unova. Wind and rain swept across the harbor without slowing operations. Everything passed through the docks eventually, and not all cargo was meant to be seen or tracked.
Money moved through the port as reliably as cargo, and people were never airtight systems. Schedules slipped, manifests changed, and containers went unscanned, smoothed over by favors and quiet payments. Driftveil's scale made this inevitable, since only a few willing hands were needed for entire shipments to vanish into private routes and warehouses. That flaw was the port's true value to the Underworld, and many groups exploited it. Black Transit was only one of them, but it was among the most active at turning Driftveil's openness to the world into a pipeline for human slaves.
Thus, when Alex and Rhea arrived via Interpol's teleportation network, they didn't immediately start kicking down doors or causing a ruckus. They had to hunt carefully in this port city, where countless hands reached for the same pot of gold, lest they draw the wrath of the global Underworld.
With Gardevoir in tow, the pair moved along the western side of the city, weaving through the traffic that carried goods to and from the port. Along the way, they paused at shops, inns, fast-food joints, and brothels until they finally picked up a trail.
"Gardevoir!" Gardevoir said, signaling that she had identified a Black Transit-exclusive henchman.
"Finally," Rhea exclaimed. "I can't believe how many Underworld operations we had to sift through just to find the one we're after."
"Black Transit isn't an international syndicate," Alex explained. "They operate exclusively in Unova but distribute their products to other Underworld groups worldwide. That puts them in the minority compared to larger distributors like Team Vortex, Team Reef, Team Umbraline, and Team Skyline."
"I don't see why we can't just arrest everyone. Wouldn't we have pissed off a lot of organizations if we took out Black Transit anyway?"
"Black Transit is an easily replaceable organization. Taking them out wouldn't hit anyone's bottom line because they'd just source their goods elsewhere. Besides, I read that Black Transit markets itself as a premium service provider, which means their customers pay extra for the privilege. I doubt anyone would miss them given those exorbitant prices. If anything, we'd be doing the other businesses a favor by removing their competition."
The pair followed the henchman Gardevoir had detected through the shadows until he reached a travel agency office and slipped into the cellar behind the building.
Gardevoir turned to Alex and nodded, confirming they had found one of the hideouts, packed with Black Transit personnel and "goods" prepared for shipment.
She explained that about a dozen men were guarding 40 people, ranging from children to adults, enough to fill a 40-foot shipping container once food provisions for the journey were accounted for.
"Jackpot!" Rhea exclaimed as her exosuit activated, molding around her body before she leapt down into the cellar.
Alex shook his head with a smile and released Rotom to disable any cameras that might be recording them. He also sent Gardevoir and Raticate inside to provide Rhea with backup. She might be invulnerable to any damage the guards could come up with, but the "goods" weren't, and they would likely be taken hostage to give the Black Transit operatives time to escape.
Soon, the sounds of gunfire, screams of pain, and crumbling walls echoed through the cellar, followed by demands.
"Don't move or this little girl gets it!" one of the guards shouted, gripping a child with one arm while pressing a gun to her head with the other.
Rhea largely ignored the threat, finishing off any henchmen within reach until only the hostage-taker remained.
"Let me go and you can—" he began, before a silver streak flashed overhead and tore the gun from his hand. Pink Psychic energy enveloped him a heartbeat later, hurling him into the back wall hard enough to knock him unconscious and end the fight.
Meanwhile, Alex entered through the back office, systematically knocking out everyone in sight. He made no distinction between civilians and logistics operators; anyone involved enough to be there was safer unconscious.
Once the room was cleared, Alex had Gardevoir sift through everyone's memories, including the office workers, the guards, and the captives, while he combed through the documents in plain sight.
The office functioned as an online travel agency that doubled as a front for Black Transit's operations. Judging by the memories and paperwork, there were no other known locations in the city, while the manager, who would have had some knowledge of it, was coincidentally out for the day. Essentially, they had reached an immediate dead end.
Suddenly, the sounds of cars, footsteps, and Pokémon rushing through the building announced the police's arrival. They stormed in and immediately spotted Alex, calmly going through the paperwork among the unconscious office workers.
Guns were drawn and trained on him, accompanied by demands for compliance.
"Get on the ground now!" they shouted, trying to intimidate him, but Alex simply ignored them and produced his bounty hunter license.
"Alex Wattson, bounty—"
"I don't care! Get on the ground now, or we will open fire!" the lead officer shouted.
Before they could react, Alex blitzed forward, knocking them out one by one until he reached the back of the group and spotted a younger Officer Jenny, her gun drawn but quivering as she clearly expected to be knocked out next.
Unlike the Jennys he had encountered in other regions, Unova's Officer Jennys had shorter hair and wore tan uniforms with navy blue ties and trim instead of the traditional blue outfits. Their companion Pokémon had also changed from the well-known Arcanine line to the Stoutland line.
The Jenny in front of him was particularly young, likely a fresh recruit rather than an experienced officer. Her nervous demeanor and terrified expression made that obvious.
"S-Sstop! Y-You're under arrest," she said nervously.
"Alex Wattson, bounty hunter," Alex repeated, producing his license for her to inspect.
Timidly, she took it and ran a quick check, confirming Alex in the database as a Champion ranked bounty hunter with a significant hunting record. She paled at the thought of confronting such a powerful trainer, clearly not understanding why their Sergeant had chosen to pick a fight. On top of that, he was part of Interpol, which meant he significantly outranked every single one of them. They had no business arresting him at all.
"Do you mind telling me how you arrived so quickly?" Alex asked. "It hasn't even been 10 minutes since I raided this place, and you were already storming it. Clearly, you got a tip from a very suspicious source."
"We… we received a call from our sergeant saying a high-profile criminal was robbing this place, so everyone nearby was called in."
"This one?" Alex asked, lifting the lead officer who had ignored his attempt to identify himself.
"Yeah. That's Sergeant Calder. He made the call."
"Gardevoir," Alex said, shoving the unconscious officer in her direction.
After a quick scan, she nodded, confirming Alex's suspicions. Of course the police were in on it. What Underworld operation didn't have friends in high places supporting its activities?
Worse still, the conspiracy ran all the way up the chain of command, past the Chief of Police, with the apparent approval of Gym Leader Clay himself. It seemed Alex had stirred a much larger Beedrill hive than he had initially realized.
Still, that wasn't going to stop him from continuing his crusade against Black Transit. If anything, he now had a far better lead than blindly combing the city and probing surface memories.
"Why don't I help you clean up the scene, Officer Jenny?" Alex offered with a kind smile.
"Really?" she said brightly. "That would be a huge help. Thank you."
Within minutes, the entire area had been cleared, the operatives restrained, and the hostages gathered. With a quick command to Gardevoir, Alex teleported everyone, including guards, hostages, police, and office workers, directly to the Driftveil police station, handing the situation over to the authorities who were quite intimidated by Alex's presence.
After an hour of processing, Gym Leader Clay walked into the station and made his way toward Alex, who had been waiting for him.
"Hrmph! Yer that bounty hunter, Alex?" Clay asked, eyeing him up. "Out with it. Whaddya want?"
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